The Lighter Side of China: Feng Shui

My first brush with feng shui happened 23 years ago when I arrived in Taiwan. As I entered my office, I was directed to a corner that I was told was perfectly located for a person like me. It was recommended that I place the desk on an angle and hang a mirror to the side of the desk. “To ward off any evil spirits you can’t see,” I was told. Soon after that, a fish tank was brought into the office to cover up some rough angles. We could have taken it a step further by installing flowing water statues, but it hardly seemed unnecessary. Our business thrived.

Feng shui (literally, “wind and water”) according to Webster’s, is a Chinese geomantic practice where the structure and position of a location is believed to harmonize with spiritual forces that inhabit it. “It's all about your qi,” one staffer explained to me. Though I was familiar enough with the famous yin-yang symbol, I wouldn’t consider myself very spiritual. However, I certainly liked the idea that the mirror and fish tank in my office were working hard to improve my luck.

I began to be a casual student of feng shui, wondering why some buildings were perceived to be very lucky and others were not. Our second apartment in China, where we lived for more than ten years, was considered to be very lucky. It was in the Diyang Apartment building, which sits kitty-corner to Ritan Park. We moved in around early 1997, just after the apartment building opened. Our daughter had just been born and we were in the center of the city. We were delighted with our new digs – and that was before we met our neighbors.

On one floor lived the famous actor/director Jiang Wen with his family. On another was the Olympic gymnast Li Ning along with his extended family. The Diyang was home to actresses and artists (Song Dandan, Liu Lili and Ai Jing) as well as the famous writer and Ming dynasty expert, Wang Shixiang. My wife and I used to love watching Mr. Wang and his wife walk around the neighborhood hand in hand, very much in love late in their life. I made several good friends there: George Blume, bureau chief of Die Zeit; Jim Gradoville, CEO of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, who moved in and soon after adopted his first daughter Wendi, and the tech entrepreneur Duncan Clarke.

What is remarkable is that the careers of all of the people mentioned above thrived during the Diyang days. A local newspaper even wrote an article remarking on how good the Diyang’s feng shui was: The building faced south, most of the apartments had picture windows overlooking the Ritan area, they were full of light, and there were really no “dark corners” in the building, whatever that means.

Whenever we passed restaurants and buildings, my wife would comment on this or that building’s feng shui. It took a while but I began to be a feng shui convert. At one point in time, when I realized that I had five clients located in the China World Trade Center Tower 1, I began to see the entire China World complex as a very auspicious place. I loved sitting in the Starbucks there, sipping their lucky coffee. And if the qi was good in the China World area, it is downright wonderful in Wangjing. We have some five clients in one building complex there. I have considered knocking on all the doors of in this building as a business development strategy.

The feng shui dynamic isn’t always positive, of course. I can remember a number of restaurants that my wife predicted would die a hard death because of their feng shui, and all I can say is that when it comes to spotting doomed businesses, she has incredible accuracy.

To understand the feng shui dynamic better, I had a conversation with Bernard Sheng, an accomplished architect. He told me: “A house that faces the end of a road is typically considered bad feng shui. I had a client who had some problems after buying a house at the end of a road. They consulted a feng shui expert who suggested minor tweaks to a drainage hole placed in their sidewalk leading up to the front door that changed the house’s dynamics. The feng shui consultant recommended a different structure for the drainage cover around this, suggested planting some greenery in the front courtyard, and things eventually got much better.”

Other feng shui beliefs revolve around doors and what you see when you walk into a building. For instance, there should never be an oven or stove visible when walking into the front door of a house; there should not be a straight path leading to the backyard from an open door; and the toilet door should not be placed at the end of a hallway.

So how does this all work? Well, all I know is that feng shui masters have special skills and training; they use a feng shui wheel to understand the alignment of a given space. Watching them work is fascinating. They come into your residence or office, ask some questions related to your birth date and time, and survey the premises. Then they make recommendations that could range from a minor tweak here and there – or end up costing you thousands of dollars. For our own feng shui purposes, my wife and I have called upon knowledgeable friends for help. They have suggested such adjustments as putting up a wall between our door and the back window, planting trees in certain places in our garden, and putting a make-up table in the master bedroom to improve airflow. The make-up table is supposed to be good luck because my wife and I travel a lot. I am still trying to figure that one out.

So what’s the lesson here? Well, if you are having a streak of bad luck, take a look around your home or office. Are there sharp edges? Are you living at the end of a street? Do you have water flowing around you? Do you have a fish tank? Is your house a pressure cooker, with the front door leading to an open kitchen with the stove staring down at you like a devil? Is the toilet at the end of the hallway waiting to suck you in? A few changes here and there and you could be in good shape.

Of course, if you own a restaurant and think your location has bad feng shui, be sure to do one thing: Do not invite my wife.

Scott Kronick is president of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, North Asia.

Photo: http://www.sd22.bc.ca/~ddunsmore/Home.html