No one knows if they saw it coming, but fortune tellers in two popular Phnom Penh locations have been ordered to cease and desist business—some of them permanently.
City hall banished all riverfront fortune tellers permanently because they were a public eyesore, and ordered psychics at Wat Phnom to take the week off while the Association of Asian Parliaments holds meetings, Chea Sunthel, deputy police chief of the Chaktomuk commune said Monday.
“It relates to public order along the riverside park,” Chea Sunthel said. Fortune tellers were an eyesore, he said, because they interfered with “city hall plans to organize the park.”
Fortune tellers in Wat Phnom can ply their trade after the conference adjourns, Chea Sunthel said.
By Monday morning, almost all of the fortune tellers who usually crowd the riverfront next to flower and fruit vendors had disappeared.
Only Khieu Sokhorn, 55, manned her small blue plastic table in the shade of a tree encroaching over a sheet metal fence.
Normally, she said, she gets visits from between 20 and 50 people, each paying $0.50 to have their palms and the cards read.
Moments after she finished a card reading for a young waitress —promising her good luck and a light-skinned husband—and as she explained the secret of her magic to reporters, a soldier in a khaki uniform ordered her to pack up her bag of tricks.
“The King is going to walk by. I asked you to move already, and you haven’t yet,” the soldier said, pointing and shouting. “Maybe I’ll take your table.”
Clucking her tongue, Khieu Sokhorn complied, folding her cards into silk scarves and packing them away.
