Days of the Dog: Prophecies for 2006

(Singapore, New Year's Day 2006. I stand in a narrow street in Chinatown, peering uncertainly at the almost illegible address scrawled on a scrap of crumpled paper. Suddenly a boy appears; before I have said a word. he beckons me to follow him, through a labyrinth of dim alleys and overhanging eaves. Ducking low, I enter a windowless room filled with the smell of incense. The boy leads me past flickering candles and through curtains of beads. Finally, in an innermost room, I meet the man I have been looking for.

He wears a tunic of black silk, and his face is hidden beneath shadows and smoke and a straggling white beard. On the carved table before him are dice, animal bones, mah jong tiles, playing cards, and scraps of parchment bearing the fragments of ancient Chinese texts. He speaks fast and faintly, in an ancient croak. Straining to understand his thick accent, and his frequent lapses into Hokkien, I open my notebook and write.

His name is known to only a few, but he is a figure of legendary wisdom, the most powerful oracle in Asia. Here, exclusive to readers of this blog, are his predictions for Asia in 2006, the Year of the Dog.

See if they're not right.)

January     Open conflict emerges within Japan's Imperial Family over proposals to change the law of successon to allow a woman to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

PROPHECY FULFILLED! See here.

February    North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, fails to make an appearance at the annual celebrations to mark his birthday, provoking anxious speculation about his possible indisposition or demise.

PROPHECY FULFILLED! See here.

March       The state of Johor in southern Malaysia is in a fever after multiple sightings of the legendary 'Mawas', an enormous hairy humanoid somewhere between an ape and a man.

PROPHECY FULFILLED! See here.

April       New price rises and the sudden illness in house arrest of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, precipitate protests against the repressive dictatorship in Burma. Despite invading Iraq in the name of freedom, the governments of Britain and the US refuse to commit to any intervention on the side of the democracy movement, arguing instead for a "negotiated solution".

May         International panic after tests on three sick Indonesians show that H5N1, the virus which causes 'bird flu' in chickens, has mutated into a form which can be passed from human to human. Anticipating a global pandemic, governments prepare to close their borders and deal with millions of casualties. But contingency plans pay off - after the quarantining of the affected village and the deaths of 34 people, the virus appears to have been contained.

June        Thai police, assisted by the CIA, foil a team of suicide bombers, 45 minutes before they were planning to set of six explosions in the resorts of Phuket and Ko Samui. All the attackers die or blow themselves up during the raids, and their exact identities and motives remain a mystery.

July        As it becomes obvious that the diplomatic efforts to deprive North Korea of its nuclear weapons program have failed, President Bush causes uproar by promising "to restore freedom to those folks in North Korea, using all of our nation's might, if necessary". North Korean media accuse him of "lighting the fires of the Third World War".

August      Speaking in English to a British newspaper, Japan's foreign minister, Taro Aso, says that Japan's pre-war occupation of China and Korea was "not necessarily a wholly mistaken policy". Violent anti-Japanese demonstrations follow in Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai. The Japanese foreign ministry insists that his words were a misunderstanding based on his imperfect grasp of English, and Mr Aso refuses to apologise.

September   Despite pressure for him to stay on as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, steps down to be succeeded by the nationalist Shinzo Abe. To everyone's surprise, given his hawkish reputation, PM Abe's first act is to sack Foreign Minister Aso.

October     At long last, the great Indonesian novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

November    With the sudden rise of the Russian wrestler, Roho, Japan's national sport of sumo is in an unprecedented situation: for the first time in history, the three champions, and the top four wrestlers are all foreigners. Sumo's first professional British wrestler makes his debut in the lower divisions.

December    Thanks to outstanding performances by their two Japanese players, Hidetoshi Nakata and Shinji Ono, Bolton Wanderers soar to the top of British football's Premier League. Japan-mania sweeps Britain.

(The incense smoke swirls over the flickering candles, and the heady smell makes me woozy. After hours of scribbling down the sage's words, my head lolls and I fall asleep. When I wake up, the old man, the boy, and all of his parchments and paraphernalia have gone ...)

Comments

[Shafiur Rahman]

What? So he had nothing to say about Singapore - this great global city? Not very patriotic is he?

[Jon Watts]

The sage is really something.
I can believe all but one of his prophesies.
A team of Mawas have more chance of going top of the premiership than Bolton.

[Hong Lee]

Do you know if the Sage has done a prediction for Europe and the most important event of the year - who will win the world cup in Germany?
Will it be England?

[Shafiur Rahman]

And I guess the sage didn't twist Jan McGirk's arm to write the following in The Independent?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article341928.ece