Face Reading

Despite the efforts of the feng shui man in the previous book, Wu Ying's life was still a mess. But that was before he met an old lady on a park bench who seemed to be able to predict the future.

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"You can call me Aunty Feng," she said with a smile.

"Feng?" I said. "As in feng shui?"

"Er… no, not exactly," she replied. "It's a different kind of feng."

"Oh," I said, which is always a good response if you don't understand what is going on."

"The words might sound the same to you," she went on, "but there are all kinds of different meanings which only Chinese people can spot."

"I am Chinese!" I said, feeling slightly hurt.

"Of course you are, dear," she said, giving me a kindly pat on the hand. "It's just that you still haven't learned all the different tones. You have to sing Chinese when you speak it, otherwise it just sounds like gibberish."

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

"So," she said, "we've got feng meaning 'wind', feng meaning 'plentiful', feng meaning 'bonfire', feng meaning 'mad as a spoon', oh... lots of different fengs." Every time she said the word, it sounded ever so slightly different. My parents didn't speak Chinese to each other so I'd never really had to listen to it before. It all sounded very confusing.

"And which one are you?" I said. "Are you Auntie Bonfire? Or maybe you're Auntie Mad?"

"Oh no," she said with a chuckle. "I'm another kind of Feng altogether."

"If you say so," I mumbled. She looked like a prime candidate for Auntie Mad to me.