Fafi or fa-fi (pronounced fah-fee), also known as mo-china, is a form of betting played particularly by those living in South Africa. Fafi participants choose the number they want to gamble on by interpreting their dreams. Unfortunately, it is also a pass time that Granny has gotten accustomed to. It all started with a dream. A number of local online gambling websites in South Africa offer the Lucky Number Dream Guide. The guide provides an extensive list of numbers that correlate to different words and suggests that our dreams may hold the key to our lucky numbers. Using the guide as reference, a dream about an accident for example may. Many studies have been conducted on the direct relationship between the lottery and dreams. Some people talk about the meaning of the lottery in dreams, and today we would like to go deeper. This is a text widget. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use a text widget to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Lucky Number is an old hoodoo formula for oil, incense, sachet powders, and bath crystals that are designed to attract good luck, good fortune, and good times. It is most often utilized as a part of magic spells to win at gambling, but it can augment the 'luckiness' factor in love spell work as well.
by Brittany Birberick
Aug 22, 2018
In a quiet corner of a park in Jeppestown, an area just east of Johannesburg’s city center, fafi players gather to collect their bags. Fafi, also written as fah-fee or known as umchina, the isiZulu word for Chinese, is an illegal lottery game played throughout urban areas and townships in South Africa. Players bet on a number between 1 and 36, all of which correspond to a particular image. These images oscillate from the seemingly mundane (shoes, egg, cat, car, and birds flying) to the more sinister events of urban life (dead woman, fire, police, thief, and drunk man). Each is based on Zulu dream interpretations and can be read as a comment on the difficulties of navigating life in South Africa both in the past and today. Players interpret their dreams and events that take place during waking hours through the number scheme, which then become wagers in the next game.
The precise origin of the gambling game is unknown, but it has ties to the Chinese community in South Africa. The large trucks with bulletproof windows that drive to each fafi game, always located in public spaces, are all driven by Chinese South Africans or more recent Chinese migrants. Two people to a truck, they drive particular routes to deliver the winning fafi number to the gamblers who have assembled. These men, and occasionally women, are known as the “fafi man.”
After the winning number is announced through a hand gesture, gamblers who placed winning bets receive their winning bags. The runner—the person designated by the fafi man to run the game at each of the different fafi spots—knows most of the players’ bag numbers by heart, so he rarely calls them out. Other players give the winners a little nod or smile of acknowledgement or approval. The losers get their bags back next. They also receive a little nod from their fellow gamblers, as if to say “don’t lose hope.” Winnings distributed, the small crowd disperses to bet again another day. These gatherings form and dissipate twice a day on street corners, at parks, and in other public spaces throughout South Africa.
In the wake of an economic downturn, corruption, and the growing influence of the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance in national and municipal politics, the promises of economic liberation proposed by the ANC in the early days of post-apartheid South Africa seem far away. Poor, black South Africans, particularly in urban areas, are looking for new ways to make futures for themselves—even to get ahead of the future.
One Sunday, I sat watching a large traditional Zulu dance competition at the park. Hundreds of men in costume retold well-known tales through their bodies, rhythm, and formations. One of the women I played fafi with regularly grabbed me by the arm and pointed to the crowds. Then she whispered in my ear, “Many people: number 26.” Everything has the potential to become a symbol to be interpreted through the number scheme.
Players place a heavy emphasis on their ability to interpret their own dreams and experiences as well as the patterns of winning numbers that they diligently track in notebooks or on scraps of paper. Players will record winning numbers in their notebooks for up to four years before they claim to understand the patterns of repeating winning numbers. This interpretive emphasis is echoed in the way development companies examine the dilapidated buildings of urban Johannesburg in search of properties and patterns that they can convert into a profit—a part of the Johannesburg 2040 plan that aims to render Johannesburg as a “world class” city. The speculative practices reach back to Johannesburg’s boomtown history, during which the patterns of gold to be mined were decoded through an array of techniques. In this way, fafi becomes another example of ways in which South Africans are eager to get ahead through speculative means.
Although bets by individual players rarely exceed or reach as high as 100 rand, most bags carry several different players’ bets. Some players will bet with multiple bags. One of the regulars plays 13 bags every game. He picks them up from different friends throughout the city. Despite the small amounts placed in each individual bet, the money going into fafi games is not insignificant. The National Lottery Commission of South Africa estimated that in 2014, fafi generated profits of 190 million rand (over $13.7 million) just in the region of Limpopo—all completely untaxed.
Gamblers who have their own bags will take bets for other players and interpret their dreams, marking all the bets on grids on the small pieces of paper distributed by the fafi man. If one of these other players wins, the bag owner will take a portion of the winning. There is a sense amongst players with bags that this is their job, and at times they will rearrange the bets they take from others—spreading them out amongst the 36 possible numbers—to increase their odds of making money. Fafi is an explicit moneymaking scheme, more successful for those in control who run the fafi banks than for any of the gamblers. However, fafi also points to how dreams and interpretations of the future have become valuable in contemporary Johannesburg.
One afternoon, after losing the pull—12: dead woman—Mbali, a friend who works in a nearby restaurant and I sat watching the two fafi men go through bags and distribute winnings. Mbali noted how the men carefully folded each paper with bets written on it. “They’ll take each of these back to wherever the main bank is and calculate how much each bag played,” she said. Players claim that the fafi men keep track of what numbers players are betting on. It’s believed that they track dreams or experiences in the world through the fafi numbers and choose a number that nobody is playing from their large data sets. The goal in playing fafi, then, is to get ahead of the fafi man’s calculations, to predict his next move. But all is speculation. None of the gamblers know for sure how the number is chosen. This is the tension that undergirds their interpretive logics: players assume the fafi man is tracking and interpreting their patterns as well. In order to get ahead of the fafi man, one must get ahead of the future before it unfolds.
In an interview with an older man, I asked if he ever played fafi. He paused for a second, then scoffed and said, “No no, I have no interest in fafi or umchina.” But then, his face and manner warmed as he said, “But my mother-in-law, she played, and she won all the time. All the time!” He went on to tell me that his mother-in-law would come to visit him and his wife in the West Rand, and when she did, she asked to be connected to the fafi games around the area. Before long she was winning so much that the fafi man asked to see her, but everyone advised her not to go. “If he sees you, you won’t be able to catch him again,” they told her. The man talked about his mother-in-law with high praise: “Always she would catch the fafi man. I really respected her, my mother-in-law, because she would win.”
Fafi, on the one hand, is an example of a successful crime enterprise that exploits the poorest and most vulnerable populations in South Africa. It points to the failure of the current government, both national and local, to protect and support citizens. But on the other hand, by looking closely at players’ commitments, interpretive schemes, and emotional responses to “getting ahead,” fafi illuminates a set of practices for and affects toward the future. Fafi shows a deep desire to understand the future in the present. The gambling game isn’t necessarily a desire for the future—the accumulated winnings are never life changing—but it is a desire to reduce uncertainty and get ahead of what is to come.
Brittany Birberick is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work examines the temporality of urban transformation through close attention to declining industry in Jeppestown, one of the earliest developed areas of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Fafi Chinese Gambling News
Cite as: Birberick, Brittany. 2018. “Playing Fafi in Johannesburg.” American Ethnologist website, August 22, 2018. Previously published in Anthropology News website, July 11, 2018. DOI: 10.1111/AN.901
This article was originally published by Anthropology News on July 11, 2018. See 'Playing Fafi in Johannesburg' on Anthropology News website here: http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2018/07/11/playing-fafi-in-johannesburg/
A Lucky Numbers Dream Guide is there for punters who have had a dream about and want to know what the numbers are associated with the dream. We’ve compiled a list of as many dream numbers we could find for our Lucky Numbers Dream Guide article. We’ve also found a fantastic Chinese Dream Guide which you can visit here, if that’s the type of guide you’re after. There are also several other dream guides available online, for example this Fafi Guide has thousands of dream to number listings, so be sure to check around if you don’t find a translation for your dream.
Lucky Numbers Dream Guide <- Click here to download the PDF directly onto your mobile device. Just be sure to have a PDF reader!
Lucky Numbers Dream Guide
Accident 3
Admiral 36
Ambulance 46
Anything dirty 34
Anything oval 10
Anything round 9
Army 43
Arrow 37
Astronaut 43
Baby 9
Baby (Newborn) 27
Bad man 26
Bad woman 15
Balloons 38
Bathroom
50
Beard 46
Bed 4
Bees 26
Bicycle 11
Big bird 19
Big fire 31
Big fish 13
Big grave 35
Big hole 35
Big house 25
Big knife 29
Big ship 22
Big spirit 31
Big stick 7
Bird (Big) 19
Birth 40
Bishop 31
Blood (Human) 1
Bloodshed 39
Boat 10
Body 20
Body builder 44
Boxer 25
Bread 19
Brush
52
Bush 26
Butterfly 18
Camel 42
Canary 15
Car 51
Carnival 47
Carriage 11
Carrot
51
Cat 20
Cattle 41
Cave 41
Chickens 7
Chief 2
Child (Small) 28
Chinese king 8
Chinese Queen 12
Chocolate 49
Church 25
Cigars 36
Circus 49
Clock 40
Clothes 35
Clown 48
Coffin 16
Coffin 29
Computers 45
Cooking 37
Copper 2
Cripple 34
Crocodile 38
Crown 23
Crown 26
Fafi Chinese Gambling Site
Dead man 4
Dead woman 12
Desert 41
Detective 14
Devil 9
Diamond 17
Diamond woman 17
Dirty (Anything) 34
Dirty woman 32
Doctor 23
Dog 27
Door 42
Drunken man 8
Ducks 12
Dung (Human) 34
Dwarf 40
Eagle 52
Eggs 10
Elephant 21
Eye (Left) 1
Eye (Right) 18
Fat man 8
Feathers 31
Fight 5
Fight 31
Fire (Big) 31
Fire (Small) 12
Fireworks 38
Fish (Big) 13
Fish (Small) 28
Fisherman 21
Flowers 11
Foot (Left) 22
Foot (Right) 28
Football 45
Forest 30
Fortune (Small) 4
Fowl 30
Fox 14
Frog 3
Funeral 26
Furniture 11
General 26
Gentleman 6
Ghosts 13
Girl (Servant) 18
Gold money 32
Grave 10
Grave (Big) 35
Graveyard 30
Gum 36
Hair 23
Hand (Left) 19
Hand (Right) 29
Handkerchief 20
Head 23
Healer (Traditional) 40
Hole 9
Hole 24
Hole (Big) 35
Hook 18
Horse 23
Horse (White) 15
Hospital 25
House (Big) 25
House (Small) 16
Human blood 1
Human dung 34
Hut 47
Indian 30
Injury 44
Jewellery 45
Jockey 2
Key 46
King 1
Kite 47
Knife 21
Knife (Big) 29
Knife (Small) 15
Lawyer 37
Left eye 1
Left foot 22
Left hand 19
Letter 16
Lightening 47
Lion 7
Lioness 24
Little boy 33
Little girl 19
Loafer 8
Madman 26
Magic 50
Man (Dead) 4
Man (Old) 21
Man(White) 1
Meat 34
Medicine 27
Milk 6
Minister 20
Money 2
Monkey 2
Monster 41
Moon 9
Motor car 22
Mouth 24
Mud 44
Music 20
Naked woman 20
Native 2
Native woman 14
Newborn baby 27
Nightmare 48
Nose 21
Nurse 14
Old man 21
Old woman 14
Orange 51
Oval (Anything) 10
Owl 9
Ox Blood 6
Paper money 16
Pearls 17
Pig 8
Pigeon 16
Planets 41
Policeman 27
Prostitute 15
Pumpkin 9
Purse 24
Queen 17
Rabbit 43
Rain 18
Rain 29
Rainbow 48
Rats 22
Revolution 50
Right eye 18
Right foot 28
Right hand 29
River 40
Round (Anything) 9
Sad news 27
Sailor 3
Salon 52
Sangoma 39
Sardines 28
Scissors 46
Sea sand 46
Sea Water 3
Servant girl 18
Sex 3
Shark 44
Shebeen 49
Sheep 35
Ship (Big) 22
Shoes 22
Shower 52
Shrimp 36
Silver money 18
Sjhambok 38
Sky 20
Small child 28
Small fire 12
Small fish 28
Small Fortune 4
Small house 16
Small knife 15
Small water 29
Smoke 19
Snail 40
Snake 32
Soccer team 39
Space ship 49
Spear 42
Spider 33
Spirit (A Spirit) 2
Spirit (Big) 31
Spirits 13
Stadium 38
Stallion 47
Stars 17
Stick 36
Stick (Big) 7
Storm 45
Stranger 21
Stream 37
Strong Man 5
Stud farm 44
Sun 30
Suprise 28
Tattoos 39
Teacher 39
Tears 29
Teeth 21
Thief 7
Thief 28
Throat 30
Thunder 43
Tiger 5
Tornado 42
Traditional healer 40
Train 10
Tramp 34
Trap 50
Treasure 37
Tree 11
Trumpet 52
Turkey 4
Turtle 43
TV 47
Umbrella 42
Vixen 24
Vulture 51
Wasp 51
Water (Sea) 3
Water (Small) 29
Wealth 48
Whale 48
Wheat 50
White horse 15
White man 1
White woman 17
Wild cat 24
Woman 31
Woman (Dead) 12
Woman (Diamond) 17
Woman (Dirty) 32
Woman (Naked) 20
Woman (Native) 14
Woman (Old) 14
Woman (White) 17
Woman (Young) 16
Wood 11
Wrestler 45
Young woman 16
Fafi Chinese Gambling Sites
We hope you found our Lucky Numbers Dream Guide useful. We will be adding more numbers to the guide so keep checking in to our Lucky Numbers Dream Guide! Check out our list of the best deposit bonuses to make the most of your lucky numbers betting.