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Ask Divination Sticks: Fortune-Telling at Wong Tai Sin Temple

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Ask Divination Sticks: Fortune-Telling at Wong Tai Sin Temple

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Known as one of the most famous temples of Hong Kong, Wong Tai Sin Temple is a popular site for visitors to make offerings, burn joss sticks, ask divination sticks and have their fortunes told. Dedicated to Master Wong Tai Sin, god of healing, the  iconic Main Altar of Wong Tai Sin Temple is the place for visitors to worship and pray filled with the scent of incense thick in the air. By using fortune sticks and stick holders exclusively made and provide by the temple, visitors get their question answered by shaking out a stick that inscribed with a number and corresponding Chinese fortune-poem. Meanwhile, the Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade provides traditional Chinese divination service for general public and worshippers.  Fortune-poem interpretation service start as 30 HKD per time, offered by fortune-tellers who run the fortune-telling stalls. With different divination techniques and specialities, the fortune-tellers translate the poems and offer suggestion for visitors’ questions. Having attracted visitors from all over the world, this ancient arts is believed to help visitors navigate their future and reveal their fate.

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Through the archway of Jinhua Heritage Pai-fong, there is the Main Altar of Wong Tai Sin Temple, where visitors can offer their incenses to Master Wong Tai Sin.

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Visitors pick bamboo containers with fortune sticks from the table next to the First Worshipping Platform. Each container has 100 sticks with numbers 1-100 on them and each number carries a fortune-poem.

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The First Worshipping Platform provides cushions for visitors to kneel and pray. The platform is crowded with people especially on weekends and holidays.

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Visitors are shaking the bamboo container while bearing a question in mind until just one stick falls out. The question can be anything related to visitors such as career, marriage and health.

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It is believed that Master Wong Tai Sin would answer the questions people ask by different sticks. The key is to concentrate and have a pious mind.

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One stick falls out from the container. The divination is considered invalid if more than one stick falls out. If visitors want to ask several questions, they should repeat the above steps.

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Visitors remember the number on the stick or write it down. It indicates the fortune-poem that connected to their problem.

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Fortune-poems are available online or can be obtained from the display board. But for detailed interpretation, it is a charge service provided in the Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade.

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A visitor is looking at the introduction board of the Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade. In this a two-story building, there are 161 stalls offering fortune-telling service including interpreting the fortune-poem.

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Most fortune-tellers speak Cantonese and Mandarin. Some stalls provide interpretation in English and Japanese for the convenience of foreign visitors.

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Each stall has its own speciality. Stall No.132 has served many celebrities such as actors and singers. The fortune-teller post selfies with those celebrities at the door to attract more visitors.

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A visitor is asking interpretation from a fortune-teller.

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Li Xiangbo, fortune-teller of stall No.113, is clearing up her devotional items. Following her father's footsteps, she has worked as a fortune-teller for 50 years.

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As the fortune-teller of stall No.134 Li Dong prefers using computer software as divination techniques. He thinks that interpretation of fortune sticks needs to be combined with calculation of the visitor’s date of birth.

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As the son of Li Minwei, ‘Father of Hong Kong Film’, and Lin Chuchu, the first actress in Hong Kong film history, Li Dong didn’t choose the same career. More than 20 years of work experience at Wong Tai Sin Temple led him to a different life path. Having studied engineering, he said that divination as a philosophy has something in common with science.

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Weekend afternoon is the busiest time of the Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade. Visitors sit at the door of stalls waiting to talk with the fortune tellers.

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Wang Hong (left) and Wen Chenyu (right) are a couple from Guangdong Province. They come for suggestion of their future career based on the sticks they got. Wang is talking to her mother about the result they received. ‘We went for three fortune-tellers,’ said Wen, ‘One of them made an accurate divination of when we got married.’

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With the result they get from fortune-telling, visitors leave the Fortune Telling and Oblation Arcade to the MTR station named by Wong Tai Sin Temple.