[桃花運] Skip Beat’s Love-Me Section, an interesting ancient Chinese folk belief and “ganbaru”
Saturday, May 30th, 2009A few months ago, I was scouted by a talent agency. It was during lunchtime in the office district. I went out to buy lunch and put on my MP3 player to listen to some language learning podcast as usual. Suddenly a man who looked as though he had already followed me for some distance touched me in the shoulder (because I did not hear not him) and introduced himself as a talent manager. After apologizing profusely, he gave me his business card and asked for my number. At first I thought this might be some sort of scam but he seemed to say nothing too exceedingly flattering about me (as I would expect from a scam). I gave him my business card.
He called several times afterwards to persuade me to take comp photos and sign up for a contract with his agency. After thinking about the consequences this may bring, I turned it down – mainly because of all the conflicts I can foresee with my existing career, but more importantly I think I have never been blessed with what the Chinese call tao hua yun [桃花運] to be successful in the entertainment industry.
Tao hua means “peach blossom” and yun means “luck”. On a mild scale, people with tao hua yun are well-liked wherever they go, especially by the opposite sex. This is quite irrespective of how good or bad they are or how they treat others. On the extreme end, people with tao hua yun are like sex magnets. A man who is well-endowed tao hua yun would inspire women to want to have his babies or something from the first moment they see him. Chinese astrologers traditionally see tao hua yun as a negative quality because of all the irrational impulses it might bring to disturb society’s order, but in modern times they seem to have come to regard this as a positive quality for popstars, musicians and the like to have, because tao hua yun may be a contributing factor to gaining adoring fans. On a tangential note, tao hua jie [桃花劫] describes the sort of love that leaves you ruined, typically in being fleeced of your life’s savings or being left with a mountain of debts. I believe the English word “lovefraud” which I saw coined here would be a close equivalent.