[Tokyo, late December, the blackest hour of the night. At the door of my apartment, a feeble, scratching knock. Outside stands a man so ancient that it is impossible even to guess his age. His dark skin is papery and wrinkled, his eyes are brown pools, and his earlobes hang loose from the weight of the polished rhinoceros horns which pierce them. He presses an object into my hand, picks up his blow pipe, and melts into the night.
It is a twist of parchment containing three or four lumps of a dried out, woody substance. My sniffs of gratification turn into cackles of triumph. My wishes have been granted. My dreams have come true. The future is mine!
Every year this blog solicits predictions for the year ahead from Asia's most renowned prophets and soothsayers. The results have been lamentable. The Sage of Singapore, whom I consulted for 2006, was a bit of a disappointment. Madam Sosostris, last year's featured soothsayer, was a disgrace! What was the fatuous old trout on about?
This year I decided to take matters into my own hands. Through contacts among the Dayak people of Borneo, I acquired certain . . . substances, harvested from the rain forest by the timanggong, or animist wizards. When inhaled, in combination with the correct incantations, they open invisible doors which allow glimpses of the future. Men of weak spirit would be driven mad by such visions, but this is a risk which I am prepared to take for you, my readers.
I drop the woody lumps, as instructed, into a cauldron of snake blood, and heat it slowly, breathing in the fumes and muttering the eldritch syllables inked on the parchment. Within moments, I am transported to the jungle. Faces painted with blood and clay flash before my eyes. My ears are filled with the sounds of insects and the screams of animals and humans. The Great Lord of the Forest taps me on the shoulder and whispers in my ear . . . Here is what I see in 2008, Heisei 20, the Year of the Rat . . . ]
January The Japanese prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, reshuffles his cabinet. He appoints as foreign minister an orang-utan with the head of a viper. (There could be some interference from the jungle drugs there ' bear with me.)
February The captain of the Nisshin Maru, the Japanese whaling vessel slaughtering lovable marine mammals in the Antarctic is disgraced. Greenpeace publishes emails in which he confesses that he never touches whale meat on the grounds that it tastes 'too fishy', and that he regularly sends the ship's helicopter to buy Big Macs in New Zealand.
March Thaksin Shinawatra, deposed prime minister of Thailand and owner of Manchester City Football Club, returns to Bangkok after 18 months in exile. He is escorted off the plane by Sven Goran Eriksson and a phalanx of Man City fans, determined to protect him from assassination.
April Malaysian police in the state of Sarawak on Borneo engage in violent scuffles with members of the nomadic tribe, the Penan, as they attempt to stop loggers destroying the last traces of virgin rain forest.
May Reports from Thailand reveal that insurgents in the south of the country were offered 5 million dollars by al-Qaeda to bomb tourist resorts in Phuket and Ko Samui, but refused.
July Yasuo Fukuda is embarrassed at the G8 summit in Hokkaido when several of the visiting leaders fail to recognise him as the country's prime minister. George Bush addresses him as 'Jun'; Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, gives him a pair of Elvis's rhinestone sunglasses as a present; and Angela Merkel mistakenly engages in high level discussions with his interpreter.
August Foreign journalists reporting on human rights violations in China are arrested and imprisoned just before the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games. Britain's prime minister describes it as 'deplorable' but insists that 'we must not let it spoil our enjoyment of what is, above all, an outstanding sporting occasion'.
September Monks in Burma mark the first anniversary of the suppressed 'Saffron Revolution' with new demonstrations against the military junta. They are shot, beaten up, and arrested. The world expresses outrage. Nothing changes.
October Tensions over North Korea's nuclear development programme, which had been easing for almost two years, intensify just before the US presidential election.
November At the International Robot Exhibition, a Japanese firm unveils an android named 'Hey Cutey'. Aimed at shy young Japanese men, it is programmed to approach and chat up members of the opposite sex.
December As scientists acknowledge that the effects of global warming are manifesting themselves more quickly than predicted, and after the failure of UN climate negotiations, communities in Nauru, the Maldives and Papua New Guinea prepare for evacuation.
[I wake with a jolt. It is the afternoon, two days after I inhaled the mystic fumes of Borneo. My limbs ache, my mouth is dry, but my head is strangely clear and focused. With trepidation, but a firm and determined step, I stride into 2008 . . .]