Thinking about almost 12 years ago, year 2000, according to my Chinese Zodiac sign I was astrologically caught in three years of misfortune. Especially the year 2000 was the first year for me to come to Australia and the last year of three years of misfortune. I was so excited and happy to place myself in the new environment but at the same time I experienced three big miserable happenings in my life, which involves my valuables including passport being stolen, my place being burgled and myself being mugged on the street in the middle of night on the way to go home. Would it have been possible for me to avoid those kinds of misfortune if I had had lucky charm with me? Could it have been a little less harsh for me with the possession of lucky charm?
12 years later, this year 2011 is the initial year of another circle of three years of misfortune for my Zodiac sign, rat along with monkey and dragon. I am not so superstitious person but when I saw the email of introducing, “Joyaviva” project I could not help thinking about this circulation of misfortune. Even though I had not been aware of this before one of my cousins who lives in my home country, Korea told me and warned me that I should be careful in the next 3 years.
Since this project includes the documentation process of being worn by someone, I had to find some people whose Chinese Zodiac signs are rat, monkey and dragon and wear the lucky charm jewellery I will make to avoid these cursed years’ misfortune. Coincidently my husband and mother-in-law’s sign are both dragons and one close friend’s sign is monkey. Deciding to whom the lucky charms are given, I decided myself, as a rat to be a wearer as well.
However, how could I be the person to make lucky charm? I am neither the person who got the super power on me nor even superstitious and religious person. Could the jewellery I will make for the project be the real lucky charm for the wearers for the next three years? That is how I borrowed the already made lucky charm paper which is really common and popular in some Asian countries like China, Korea and Japan.
The lucky charms I made for the project are based on the idea of Korean lucky charms, where Chinese characters are written on paper. People carry this piece of paper secretly and believe that it will give them good luck and protect them from misfortune. This belief is based on Buddhism and I used this as my inspiration. Through interpreting all the characters’ forms, shapes and meanings, I recreated the symbols. Still using the paper of Chinese characters downloaded on line, I tried to put all my prayers, wishes, love and hope for the wearers into making process.
I will be very happy to see my loved ones wearing them and believe that now they are well protected by the good wishes of the person who made this pendant. Happily they have been wearing it very faithfully and providing me with good stories.
Even for me after I started to wear this lucky charm pendant, I came to know my baby passed the first 12 weeks of pregnancy well and whenever I did the scan I found this baby girl is very normal and healthy. Accidently the Zodiac sign of this baby, who is due to arrive in Feb, 2012 is also dragon so that the lucky charm I have been wearing was actually protecting two people at the same time.
For the last almost 4 months I have been wearing this charm, I have successfully achieved this years’ goals in my career as a contemporary jeweller and the most importantly I and my family including the little baby girl in me have stayed healthy and happy. Also I have been driving well without any accidents since I got the Australian driver’s licence. Of course I experienced some couple of failures like missing the opportunities of getting funded for my career but at the moment I am very happy for me to be involved in a lot of important exhibitions only in this year without any trouble.
As this pendant will leave me to travel for exhibition for the next 2 years, I think I should make another similar charm for my family.
Jin ah Jo