When Grandma Wong first held up her new granddaughters Moonie and Mei Ling at the hospital, she noticed that they both had a large golden birthmark in the middle of their forehead like Buddha’s third eye. As the babies grew older, the birthmark grew larger, and a crimson orb-of-a-mole emerged on the center like an all-knowing eyeball. Mrs. Wong was a nonbeliever, generally, and not superstitious. Although she claimed herself to be a good Buddhist, in practice she was an agnostic materialist and saved half of her money in an emerging market mutual fund and half under her mattress and paid for incense at the temple only after a sharp downturn in the market or to fend off an imminent tsunami.
Auntie Wu urged Grandma Wong to take the girls to see the Dalai Lama next time he came to visit Hong Kong. After all, he was the CEO of all Buddhists. He should have an enlightened explanation about this birthmark. Or, at least, he could give her a ballpark number as to what the girls were worth. Remember, just last year, the little girl Sajani was plucked from the streets of Nepal and was elevated to “Living Goddess”! Perhaps the twins are the latest manifestations of the Buddha. Grandma Wong heeded Auntie Wu’s words and made an appointment with the Lama’s secretary almost nine months in advance of his visit; and came the day, she hired an expensive hovercraft taxi to get to the temple on the island of Lantau. When she got to the front desk, a stone-faced nun handed her a number, then directed her to a large waiting room.
Upon entering the waiting room, she was disappointed to see that it was filled with hundreds of proud and blissful grandmothers with their special girlings in tow. They all had shiny red birthmarks on the center of their foreheads.