Year of the Monkey

Two thousand and four, the year of the monkey, my zodiac year. Two weeks before the New Year, Old Aunt Li stopped me on my way home and told me to buy a red rope. 'Tie it around your waist,' she said. 'That'll get rid of bad luck.' She was the self-appointed director of the Community Management Committee in our building and knew everyone's birthday and every family's private business. According to her, in your zodiac year you are either prosperous or miserable. Aunt Li was in her sixties. Unlike other women her age who were busy caring for grandchildren or practising group dance in a park, she would walk around with a thread-bound I Ching and replica ancient copper coins in her pocket. It was said she had predicted that Four-eyed Wang's son would get into Beijing University, that rice would cost twenty per cent more by the end of the year and that Doctor Deng on the first floor would have a baby girl.