Saju of Korean presidents

Public figures hopeful of becoming the 11th South Korean president have started to make their moves for the upcoming election on December 19th this year. Some have already declared their candidacy while others are still deliberating. The public’s attention is pulled toward various interests accordingly.

The approval ratings are continuously reported based on diverse formations with predicted scenarios of either a two-way race or multilateral competition. Many political pundits appear on current affairs TV programs to state their views about the future leadership and each candidate’s prospects. Meantime, people may also find some eccentric analysis here and there, such as foretelling the destiny of each candidate.

People usually read saju to foresee their destiny. When it comes to determining a national leader, they apply more criteria in search of a comprehensible answer. Other than saju, face readings, feng shui of their residences along with interpretations of their ancestor’s tombs, words from a shaman, palm readings and even names are cited to infer who will be the winner.

Much to our entertainment, these interpretations continue after the election offering explanations as to why a certain candidate was selected and why the others were not, although the speculations may sound farfetched.

There are a great variety of anecdotes about how the past candidates or winners devised ways of rising to power or why they had reasons to become a leader. Certain candidates moved their grandparents’ tombs to benefit from their ancestor’s halo effect. Many were told to visit great fortune tellers of those days to get an accurate prediction.

Some used their names to sound or as meaning of a consequential leadership and even involved a mythology to convince people that they were destined to be a leader. Dating back through history, many kings fabricated myths about of their birth and process of growth to make their eventual destiny appear to be somehow divine.

Some fortune tellers became famous because they predicted the victories of certain candidates or the death of the late former leader of North Korea. However the same fortune tellers failed to anticipate the victory of former president, Roh Moo-hyun and of Lee Myung-bak. Not all who have moved their ancestor’s tombs have succeeded to the presidency in the past elections.

To get to the point, it is a rather muddled process attempting to foretell who will be elected in the South Korean presidential election. A popular fortune teller wrote in his recent column that we have to read the spirit of current times on top of saju, feng shui or face readings in order to conjecture the outcome of presidential election correctly. This sounds too ambiguous and rather evasive.

If I state my forthright view, so far, those who had dynamic, drastic and perilous saju became presidents in Korea’s postwar politics. However, the saju of Joseon and Goryeo kingdoms monarchs should not be considered under this hypothesis. Referring to past presidents, their saju were not those of sage kings based on conventional saju theory.

A typical symbol, a power star, that is required for a leader, was seen in all of their saju, but damaged. Some dignity was obviously there but in a contorted form. It was even said that the saju of a former president, Kim Young-sam was identical to that of a homeless person.

Paradoxically, most of the recent presidents were investigated by prosecutors for various indictments right after their terms of office ended. It is actually hard to find a president who has continuously been revered, looking back on Korea’s modern history. Was this because of their lousy saju or because they had lived through tumultuous times?

During an era of turbulence, those with a rough fate may survive better than a noble one. And they literally contributed to the rapid growth of Korea, astonishing the world. Now, what we need to recognize about the upcoming presidential election is what kind of leadership is required for the future of Korea. It doesn’t seem to be the same as for past leaderships. It is time to sever the degrading vice so that people should pay homage to the president even after the tenure.

Info : Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teaching about the “Four Pillars of Destiny”? For further information, visit Janet’s website at www.fourpillarskorea.com and contact Janet at 010-5414-7461 or email janetshin@hotmail.com.

The writer is the president of the Heavenly Garden, a saju research center in Korea, and the author of “Life’s Secrets”. <The Korea Times/Janet Shin>

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