{"id":285837,"date":"2026-07-23T13:58:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T09:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=285837"},"modified":"2026-07-23T14:33:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:33:26","slug":"south-koreans-turn-to-tarot-to-understand-their-pets-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/285837\/","title":{"rendered":"South Koreans turn to tarot to understand their pets\u2019 thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A greyhound named Khan sniffs at a spread of tarot cards at a fortune-telling shop in the South Korean capital of Seoul, before ​placing a paw on one.<\/p>\n

Across the table, his owner, Ahn Hye-joo, waits anxiously ‌to learn the meaning of the card, which depicts a dog chasing its owner.<\/p>\n

Hwang Soo-kyung, a tarot reader who runs the Ace Sophia fortune-telling parlor in the city’s upmarket Gangnam district, said the image indicated anxiety ​related to the five puppies fathered by the pedigree animal.<\/p>\n

A growing niche offering among fortune-telling shops, “pet tarot” is driven by a surge in pet ownership ​as fewer South Koreans choose to have children, deterred by costly housing and education, Reuters<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n

Government surveys show 29.2% of homes in South Korea, which has the world’s lowest birth rate, were raising pets this year, up from 17.4% in ​2010.<\/p>\n

Hwang, who opened her shop in 2014, said demand for pet tarot has grown as ​owners increasingly view the animals as family, or sometimes a sole domestic companion.<\/p>\n

No clients have ever limited themselves ‌to ⁠just one session, she added, at a cost of 20,000 won ($14) each.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A greyhound named Khan sniffs at a spread of tarot cards at a fortune-telling shop in the South Korean capital of Seoul, before ​placing a paw on one. Across the table, his owner, Ahn Hye-joo, waits anxiously ‌to learn the meaning of the card, which depicts a dog chasing its owner. Hwang Soo-kyung, a tarot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":285832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,43,98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","category-other-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285839,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285837\/revisions\/285839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}