A view of Hamhung, South Hamgyong province, in 2011. (Jen Morgan, Flickr, Creative Commons)Since the start of the new year, North Korean officials have sought out fortune tellers to divine their future for 2026. North Korean authorities ban such things as anti-socialist behavior, but people have grown more reliant on superstition over time.
A source in South Pyongan province told Daily NK recently that since the start of the new year, officials in the province and their families “have visited fortune tellers to learn their fortunes for the upcoming year.” He added that state security officers “patrol the homes of fortune tellers to see who visits them.”
North Korean officials, believing a large-scale shake-up will take place with the Ninth Party Congress, now worry about their jobs, and this insecurity is driving them and their families to visit fortune tellers, the source said.
According to the source, an official at the provincial prosecutor’s office who faced punishment for setting a drug offender free in return for a massive payment in foreign currency was told by a fortune teller in mid-January that if they held a shamanist ceremony and bribed their superiors, they might escape punishment. So, he spent a fortune on the ceremony and gave the fortune teller an electric bicycle.
The wife of a party official in Pyongsong went to a fortune teller earlier this month and gave them 10 kilograms of rice to learn what was in store for her husband and family. This was after her husband was recently forced by his superiors to write a self-criticism letter for his involvement in several problems.
Bribes to fortune tellers, bribes to security officers
“It’s not just a few officials and their relatives who go to fortune tellers and conduct shamanist ceremonies,” the source said. “The higher the official, the more obsessed they are with fortune tellers, and the money fortune tellers receive is considerable.”
Officials and their families pay around 10 kilograms of rice to get their fortunes read. If they hold shamanist ceremonies or other superstitious rites, they can pay up to hundreds of dollars.
Officials who worry about getting caught visiting a fortune teller summon the fortune tellers to their homes, where they get their fortunes read and perform shamanist ceremonies. However, even this they must do very quietly as the head of their neighborhood watch unit could report them to state security officers.
Officials are not the only ones visiting fortune tellers. In particular, since the start of the new year, crowds of people have descended on fortune tellers to learn how the year will unfold, leaving state security officers to ponder how to resolve the issue.
Although state security officers regularly patrol fortune tellers’ homes to watch them, fortune tellers also regularly pay the officers bribes to leave them alone, so few are actually busted and punished, the source said.
“State security officers take bribes from fortune tellers and even get their fortunes read, so they can’t blindly arrest them,” the source said. “But with their superiors telling them to crack down on superstitious acts harshly, state security officers are mulling what to do.”