Yik Wai Chee doesn’t think of himself as a believer.

Yet for years, he has consulted bazi, the ancient Chinese system of elemental forecasting, as a kind of strategic gut check on his life.

“For me, it is just a long-term ‘luck check’ to see if there are general strategies I can adapt to get through some life challenges,” he said. “If it doesn’t cost me at all to adapt to new strategies, I will try it.”

He is careful not to overstate its influence. Bazi sits closer to tarot in its interpretive vagueness than to any hard forecast, he says. It doesn’t drive his decisions so much as occasionally inform them.

But in a region where young professionals are increasingly confronted with hectic schedules, rising living costs and the relentless pressure to get ahead, even interpretive vagueness has its appeal.

Across Southeast Asia, this ancient practice is finding a distinctly modern second life.

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