Hong Kong's biggest bank gave Alie Pang a choice: Take a buyout to quit or face deep cuts in his benefits.
The 14-year employee decided to leave HSBC Holdings to pursue a new livelihood -- the ancient practice of Chinese fortune telling, guided by the placement art of feng shui, astrology and other factors such as the exact time of a client's birth.
Hong Kong's joblessness has stirred a crisis of confidence in the once-booming economy that has many people looking around for new careers.
Longtime fung shui masters fret that the rush into fortune telling as a business will degrade the ancient art.
Now 46, he is still studying under his fung shui master, Au Chung-tak, and has a job helping Au establish a fortune-telling training centre. Pang hopes someday to teach full time, passing on knowledge to others suffering a career crisis.
Apart from telling fortunes and offering Jung shui advice, they publish books and cartoons, predict political developments and stock market fluctuations, or teach students in universities. They comment on celebrity relationships.
Some appear on TV or act in movies. |