The Iron Lady Lives Again: A Midnight Encounter with Destiny in Busan

I never thought I’d discover my true identity while sweating through a Korean summer night, clutching a watermelon and dodging fortune-telling booths like a tourist cliché. Yet there I was, wandering the humid streets of Busan at nearly 10 PM, when fate—or perhaps the universe’s sense of humor—intervened in the most unexpected way.

“You are the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher.”

The words hung in the thick summer night air of Busan’s popular Haeundae beach , delivered by a young female Korean fortune teller in traditional sky-blue hanbok who had just finished analyzing my birth chart with the precision of a financial auditor. I blinked, certain I’d misheard through the language barrier.

“Really? Margaret Thatcher?” I managed, setting down my half-eaten watermelon cubes I was eating to cool down, with the bewildered grace of someone who’d just been told they were once the Iron Lady of British politics.

She nodded solemnly, then reached for her phone, fingers flying across the Google Translate app. The screen confirmed it: Margaret Thatcher. Reincarnation. Me.

This wasn’t exactly what I’d bargained for when I’d spotted that lone English poster advertising fortune-telling services. After days of being linguistically locked out of Korea’s most popular Saju practice, I’d practically sprinted toward that booth like a moth to a very specific, culturally illuminating flame.

Travel, I’ve learned, is about saying yes to the absurd. It’s about abandoning your carefully curated itinerary for the sake of genuine human connection, even when that connection involves being told you’re the spiritual successor to a controversial British Prime Minister. Sometimes the most profound cultural exchanges happen not in museums or temples, but in makeshift booths where strangers divine your destiny for the price of a good meal.

The fortune teller—let’s call her Saju Master Kim—had offered me a choice between tarot cards and the traditional Korean five-elements reading called Saju. I chose the latter, hungry for an authentically Korean mystical experience. This ancient practice analyzes personality, relationships, health, and career through the interplay of fire, water, wood, earth, and metal, creating an astrological profile as complex as the person sitting before you.

“You have all five elements,” she explained, consulting both her phone and while making notes on a grid in indecipherable kanji like calligraphy. “Very strong. Very special. Fire and water are strongest—much steam in your life!”

She wasn’t wrong. My life had indeed been a study in contradictions, generating enough metaphysical steam to power a small city.

But here’s where the magic of cultural immersion truly revealed itself. When I mentioned my secret novel writing ambitions—something I’d barely articulated to myself, let alone others—her eyes lit up with instant understanding. Through broken English and frantic translation app use, she captured the essence of my creative dreams with startling accuracy, describing not just what I wanted to write, but why it mattered.

“Writing and teaching,” she declared, “strengthen your wood element. Very important for you.”Apparently my wood element is weak which affects my digestive system and needs strengthening. “Drink lots of water and excersise!”, the mothering advice to an overweight westerner from a health conscious Korean.

This led to the most fascinating geopolitical-spiritual analysis I’d ever encountered. Korea, she explained, embodies the wood element, while Japan represents fire. Throughout history, wood has fed Japan’s fire through Buddhism, kanji writing systems, and pottery techniques flowing from and through Korea. Yet fire also consumes wood, creating the complex love-hate relationship that defines these neighboring nations.

“Japan protects Korea from tsunamis,” she added with surprising philosophical depth, “but also burns Korea with war. This is nature of elements.”

She prescribed my future travels with the confidence of a cosmic travel agent: “Go to Japan when you want to write—fire element makes you comfortable. Come to Korea when you need energy—our wood feeds your fire.” So true, I found Korea very energizing!

Standing there at nearly 11 PM, clutching a complimentary bag of Korean grapes she handed me before I left and pondering my apparent past life as Britain’s most polarizing female leader, I realized something profound about travel. The best experiences emerge when you remain radically open to serendipity, when you trust locals to guide you into their world, and when you’re willing to look ridiculous in pursuit of genuine connection.

Cultural immersion is about creating space for the unexpected to teach you something about yourself. Sometimes it comes through discovering you’re the reincarnation of a political icon while eating grapes from a fortune teller who just mapped your soul using ancient Korean wisdom.

I returned to my hotel that night energized in ways I couldn’t fully explain, the fortune teller’s words echoing in my head. Whether or not I actually carry Margaret Thatcher’s spiritual DNA matters less than what the encounter revealed about remaining open to local culture, even when—especially when—it challenges everything you thought you knew about yourself.

The next morning, finishing those crisp Korean grapes for breakfast, I made a resolution. Every journey should include at least one moment of beautiful absurdity, one conversation that reframes your understanding of yourself and the world. Whether it’s fortune telling in Busan, or conversations about old kimonos with ancient looking grandmas in Okinawan markets, the key is saying yes to experiences that locals hold dear, even when they seem utterly foreign to your comfort zone.

Because sometimes, just sometimes, a Korean fortune teller holds up a mirror that reflects not just who you are, but who you might become. And if that person happens to be the reincarnation of Margaret Thatcher, well—stranger things have happened in the grand theater of travel.

After all, we contain multitudes. Some of us apparently contain scary former Prime Ministers.