We are back again at the temple near my grandmother’s house. We have come here to ask the monk to help sort out a problem. No, it isn’t me this time! Tai has come to ask the monk to give her a new name. She believes that bad luck is following her and that if she changed her name then maybe it couldn’t find her any more!

It all started around the end of last year when Tai’s mum went to see a fortuneteller in Bangkok. She told him Tai’s real name, Sarita, and the exact day and time she was born. She was a bit shocked when the fortuneteller showed her a graph of Tai’s life. It didn’t look good at all, especially the year that she is going to be nineteen, which is this year! Tai’s mum said that her life isn’t gong to get better until she’s 24 or 25 years old.

Her mum came back and told Tai about it. She warned her not to do anything risky. She also told me to be careful and not to do any naughty stuff when I am with her. We listened to her and promised that we would do as she said. It looked like Tai completely believed in what her mum said. Myself, I just acted normal and was only a little bit more careful than usual. I just thought that if I didn’t do any naughty things, then there was no way for me to get into any trouble.

Nearly two months late, I realized that I had made a mistake, Everything was going wrong for us. I still got into trouble even though I tried to be good. It was the same for Tai. Bad things were happening all the time.

Tai then came to me and started to talk about what she could do about it. I had no idea and didn’t really know what to do. But after a while she said something that reminded me about one of my friends.

When I was in primary school, a friend of mine had a really bad accident. He was playing outside one day and he thought he would cool himself down with some water. But, the water turned out to be acid! It was too late. He was burned very badly. After he left the hospital, he still continued to have a lot of bad luck. Then, one day he came into school with a new name! He said that a monk had chosen it for him. You know what, ever since that day he never had any more bad luck!

I told Tai about this and asked her where she got her real name? She said to me that her parents chose it for her. I then suggested that she should do the same as my friend. I reminded her that back when Grace was born, my grandmother wrote down the day and time of her birth and took it to a monk. He worked out which letters her name should start with in order for her to have good luck. He gave us a shortlist of three names and we chose Chanakarn as we liked the meaning.

In my own opinion, I think Tai changing her name isn’t really going to help. It is not like “bad luck” is an evil person hunting for her. I believe in karma so I think that it might be because we haven’t done enough good things in our life. But anyway it doesn’t hurt to try, right?

Thinking about it, maybe I should change my name as well! I wonder if my parents chose my name or was it a monk? Maybe I should ring my mum when I get back home.

Wait a minute, if I change my name what will I do about my nattawud.com web site? I think it might be easier if I just try to be good and then bad luck won’t come looking for me so often!