Chinese: 姻緣紅線 Yīnyuán hóngxiàn; red thread of marriage Japanese: 運命の赤い糸 Unmei no akai ito; the red thread of fate // 結び の 神 – Musubi* no kami; matchmaking, love and marriage.

Though there are multiple versions of the Red String of Fate tale, the more popular and well known version involves a young boy who, walking home one night, sees an old man standing beneath the moonlight. The man is Yue Xia Laoren, the old lunar matchmaker god, and he explains to the boy that he is attached to his destined wife by red thread and show him the young girl it will be. The boy being young and disinterest in marriage or having a wife picks up a rock and throws it at the girl before running away.

Many years later when the boy has grown into a man, his parents arrange a wedding for him. On the night of their betrothal, his wife waits for him in their bedroom with the traditional veil covering her face. Raising it, the man is delighted to find his wife is one of the great beauties of his village but wonders at the adornment she wears on one eyebrow. When asked about it, the woman responds that when she was a girl, a boy through a rock at her which left a scar on her eyebrow. He realises she was who he had thrown the rock at when he was a boy.

It is believed that there is a red cord attached to those that are destined to meet, and though it may twist and turn, tangle and stretch; it will never break and will ultimately bring two destined people together. In the original Chinese myth, the cord is fastened around the individual’s ankle. In Japan, it is bound from the male’s thumb to the female’s little finger; and in Korean culture, the red thread is thought to be fastened to the little finger of each party.

The red string of fate is a theme that turns up a lot within Eastern Asian literature and film, but also within the Western media and mythologies; though it is more commonly referred to as soulmates and twin flames.

While the stories they all tell are vastly different from the original folk tales, they all share the constant theme of two people finding each other no matter what. Even if they fall away from each other, or their lives twist and turn away from each other; they still find their way back to each other by the end. Oftentimes this is also after going through some form of personal transformation that makes the individual(s) better know themselves and understand others.

The Japanese animated film “Your Name” (君の名は, Kimi no No wa) tells the story of two characters, Mitsuha and Taki, who switch bodies when they fall asleep. At first they both think they’re just having a super realistic dream, then learn that those dreams are in actual fact real and that they are somehow switching bodies. They get to know each other by leaving messages and instructions to each other for when they wake up.

As the story progresses, they go in search for each other though it transpires their timelines are split three years apart from each other, so Taki doesn’t realise who Mitsuha is immediately when their paths first cross. Many years later, they are both living in Tokyo having forgotten the dreams they’d had, though they both have a sense of having lost something. They finally see and recognise each other again while on different trains that pass each other in a station which leads to them both getting off the trains and running across Tokyo trying to find the other.

“Musubi* is the old way of calling the local guardian god. This word has profound meaning. Tying thread is Musubi. Connecting people is Musubi. The flow of time is Musubi. These are all the god’s power. So the braided cords that we make are the god’s art and represent the flow of time itself. They converge and take shape. They twist, tangle, sometimes unravel, break, and then connect again. Musubi. Knotting. That’s time.”
Hitoha Miyamizu, Your Name

“Do you believe?
Even in a different time and a different dimension,
The one meant for you will appear and protect you.”
Xia Lin: Well Intended Love (Season 2)

In Well Intended Love (奈何BOSS要娶我, Nàihé BOSS yào qǔ wǒ), a relationship between the main characters Ling Yizhou and Xia Lin is initially instigated by a marriage contract. As the story progresses, the two fall in love with each other for real as they get to know each other. Even though Ling Yizhou loses his memory while hypnotised at one stage, the strength of the relationship brings his memories back through the strong, underlying bond the two share.

It is more into season two that the red string of fate concept appears with the characters living in an alternate timeline. While the storyline is different to the first season, it follows the characters as they find their destined partners. At the very end of the second season, Xia Lin is dreaming and sees flashes of the original story of how she and Yizhou came together and speculates that in every version of their lives, she and Yizhou would find each other some way.

The Korean drama It’s Okay Not to Be Okay (사이코지만 괜찮아, Saikojiman Gwaenchanh-a) which has just started on Netflix is a brilliant example of the dark and brooding side to the red string of fate and twin flames. A romance with a difference, it follows the healing journey of the two main characters and shows their emotional and psychological wounds in a profound manner.

Much like the original folk tales, It’s Okay Not to Be Okay shares flashbacks to the main characters as children when their paths first crossed. One is hurt and runs away and it isn’t until they’re adults that their paths finally re-unite.

A red string of fate relationship is one that is pre-destined and inexorable relationship that will occur at precisely the right moment. Whether the individuals are aware of each other or not, and no matter where their lives take them first, they will ultimately find their way to each other; and when they do finally come together, they will be in a place of understanding and balance which creates an unshakeable core to the relationship.

Twin flame relationships within the theory of the red string of fate eludes to a runner and a chaser – where one is more awake and aware of the connection while the other is either oblivious or freaked out by the intensity of the emotions. The roles can switch between partners throughout life, and there can be a lot of coming together and breaking a part as both deal with shadow work before a final union happens.

**Sadly because of the romanticisation of twin flame unions and soulmates, a lot of toxic and harmful relationships are over looked as “twin flame.” Shadow work refers to self improvement and self love, dealing with fears and past hurts and learning empathy and compassion to light up the darkness and become the epitome of yin and yang. It is important to know that any level of mental and/or physical abuse, the use gaslighting or any method for control and dominance is still an abusive relationship and anyone suffering from abuse needs help and support.

If you want to read more on Twin Flames, check out the post on ‘Twin Flames and False Flames’ here.

“And all along I believed, I would find you.
Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years,
I’ll love you for a thousand more.”
Christina Perri – A Thousand Years

References:

The Taiwan Times. Find Love at Taiwan’s Top Five ‘Cupid Temples’.  https://thetaiwantimes.com/find-love-at-taiwans-top-five-cupid-temples/
TV Tropes. Red String of Fate. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedStringOfFate
Wikipedia. Read Thread of Fate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_thread_of_fate

Media Quotes:

Christina Perri. A Thousand Years.
Jo Yong. It’s Okay Not to Be Okay (사이코지만 괜찮아).
Jordan Mechner. Prince of Persia (Sands of Time).
Makoto Shinkai. Your Name (君の名は).
Qiang Wu. Well Intended Love (奈何BOSS要娶我).

Original article: The Red String of Fate.

He was so beautiful, eyes so brown and deep my soul fell straight out of this reality. Time stopped, the world vanished, my heart raced and a fever took over me, and for a moment that was both an eternity and no time at all, there was nothing else in existence but us two. Not even physical bodies, just two souls pulled from a physical existence. Then it was over, I was back in the room feeling incredibly faint and weird, and we both continued on our way like nothing happened. And perhaps for him, nothing happened. To this day I can’t explain what happened to me, or why. All I knew then was that I’d heard a cold, chilling voice telling me he was the one and I’d never truly love another and that we would never be together.

There was so much weird stuff after that encounter as well. if ever I was close in proximity to him, I’d be drawn towards as though some unseen force had taken over me, or my soul was magnetised to him. My feet would carry me towards him, or an unseen hand would turn my head to look at him. Always I’d see those enchanting brown eyes looking back at me, a reflection of my own distant, confused expression as our paths crossed.

It also felt wrong, it was never the magnetism go two being inexplicably drawn to each other, but of two positives or two negatives being pushed together. To a point, they’ll pull towards each other, but then they will violently jerk away or simply slide past each other. Hardly the sensation that fills you with confidence. I wanted to ask him about it, not as a desperate attempt at love, but as someone who may or may not have been suffering the same crazy stuff I was. I didn’t have anyone else I could ask. 

We never talked. I don’t know what Fortuna has against me, but it was a constant string of disasters and embarrassments for myself. People who weren’t really friends made a further fool of me that fate alone could manage…and I really did look like the worst freak you can visualise. I wouldn’t have spoken to me either.

Then there were the dreams where he would be present. Right at the beginning, there were so many. I was going through a really bad time, and it was like this person was watching over me, making sure I wouldn’t end it all and chasing the nightmares away. I wanted to know so badly if they were two-way dreams, and still, do.

They got less over time; mostly I wanted to forget all about that person. I wished I’d never seen them, wished I could rip my heart out or force it to obey my mind; and for a time I would forget all about him, maybe even for years. But, surer than the sun will rise, a night would come when, for no reason and no prior conjuration, he would come back to me. I’d wake up in a fever, every single memory once again un-locked. 

Still no explanation. Still so many questions. Who was he? What was he? Was he my twin flame? A soul mate? Why did we meet? Is it a past life thing? Am I just insane? All I could do was start the process of suppressing the memories and forcing all thoughts of him away again, each time it happened.

Over ten years later from that encounter, I often look back and wonder what happened to that sweet, innocent little girl that just wanted to live in paradise, fulfil her every dream and be totally enthralled in love, or even to the slightly messed up, goth teenager that still wanted to find love even among the chaos and constantly fought for the light.

I don’t know what love feels like, and that little girl that would never have gone back and changed anything, dreamt of Disney princes and may have met her true love – she simply wants to find a strong enough banishment spell to forget that person, or one that will turn back time to never meet that person. Or if one such spell existed, it would be one to entirely obliterate her soul from all existence.

In all I’ve read about twin flames, it seems that both know and recognise the other even if they aren’t “together” at any one time. I never got the vibe from him that he had shared in that strange awakening or experience. I feel like that encounter and all that happened after was purely one-sided which would put him right out of the twin flame category.

There would be times, sometimes even now, where I’ll have a sense of Deja vu, and its like I’m living across to realities. I’m fully aware of the present and where I am, and also of this other vision where I’m looking for him to walk into the room, or I’ll look at my phone because the Deja vu showed he was calling/texting me, and those things never happened. It’s like something is broken and wrong.

I sometimes wonder it was something else going on, though quite what I’ve never worked out. Maybe it was some strange crossing of several realities, times and existence, and at that moment I wasn’t looking at that person, but someone else looking through that person as a vessel. Maybe someone that looks similar to the person they used as a portal. Who knows. I’ve done all sorts to try and debunk the situation and to make it something so ludicrous it looses power.

Original article: Twin Flame Experience?.