Feng Shui masters revel as Asian property picks up

Feng Shui masters revel as Asian property picks up

Tara Joseph and Dominic Whiting, Reuters, Hong Kong/Bangkok

Asia's feng shui masters are thanking their lucky numbers as the
ancient Chinese practice gains in popularity and the region's
property markets are on the upturn.

Feng shui has become so popular among Asia's ethnic-Chinese
business elite from Bangkok to Beijing that Western investors are
hiring practitioners, partly to please staff and local partners.

For example, self-styled Singapore "queen of feng shui" Lyn
Yap, who counts Oracle Systems, Citibank and ICI Paint among her
clients, said computer firm IBM paid US$6,000 for her services.

She ensured the positioning and characteristics of IBM's
seven-storey office conformed to the principles of feng shui --
which means wind and water -- to maximize energy flows and
improve the fortunes of the firm and its staff.

According to The Feng Shui Society
(www.fengshuisociety.org.uk), the underlying philosophy
recognizes that people and their environment are sustained by an
invisible energy called chi. It moves like wind, but can eddy and
become trapped like water and stagnate.

The skill of a Feng Shui consultant lies in creating space for
chi to flow and to remove obstacles, the society says.

Yap, comparing the office to a mythical creature, says: "It
really looked like a Kirin, which has a dragon's head, the body
of a horse, scales of a carp and usually stands on gold ingots.

"So I told them to put yellow lights around the building to
represent the gold and switch them on every evening." She also
shifted water tanks on the roof because their position would have
made women employees ill, and redesigned entrances so cars would
pass in front of the building.

"Cars can carry a lot of good energy to the place," Yap said.

Feng shui is a matter of high politics beneath Hong Kong's
steely skyline, a feast of modern design thanks to famed
architects such as I.M. Pei, Sir Norman Foster and Cesar Pelli.

The city's incoming chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, set up a
temporary office ahead of the British handover to Chinese rule in
1997 but complained that the feng shui was no good and moved.

The wealthy businessman then refused to occupy Government
House, a sprawling colonial-era building where British governors
lived and entertained, saying the feng shui was obliterated by a
new Bank of China skyscraper.

Feng shui experts said the building was shaped like a knife to
"cut" the last British governor, Chris Patten, and some blamed it
for a 1997 economic crisis.

"It's becoming quite common practice for big corporations to
engage a feng shui master when they embark on a major project,"
said Edward Shen, president of the Hong Kong Institute of
Architects. "The costs can run into unimaginable figures."

American architect I.M. Pei defended his design for the Bank
of China building, saying it replicated a bamboo stalk to
symbolize enterprising spirit and future growth.

After years in the doldrums, Hong Kong's property market
appears to have turned the corner this year. As the city begins
to revel in its role as a financial center for mainland Chinese
deals, luxury homes are selling briskly.

Property prices are seen rising by 20 percent in 2004, having
dropped up to 65 percent since 1997.

"It's a settling energy period and the general property market
will pick up," said Feng Shui consultant Jill Lander, a former
hairdresser who went to Hong Kong as the wife of a colonial
policeman.

"If you buy now you will reap considerable returns," she said,
adding that her consultation fees for homes start at HK$2,500
(US$320).

Shen said home buyers could save cash by doing some simple
feng shui checks themselves.

You avoid sharp objects facing your main window and you should
not be able to see through a home from the main door -- money
coming through the front door would slip straight out.

"I know friends who would knock down walls and re-plan entire
units based on the advice of a feng shui master," Shen said.

Feng Shui masters say the practice is making a comeback in a
construction boom in its birthplace, China, although Communist
authorities look on it with some disdain.

"There's a sort of underground network that utilizes feng shui
experts and a lot of the newest buildings use it," said
California-based James Jay, who runs feng shui study tours to
Beijing's Forbidden City.

"It's accepted as a social or historical study, but to
practice is frowned upon," he said. "I've heard it's not wise to
advertise you do it because there could be some backlash. Masters
I know practice strictly by word of mouth."

Although the feng shui business lifts with property booms,
practitioners say they can also do well in a cyclical downturn.

Yap is one of around 30 full-time feng shui practitioners in
Singapore who are rushed off their feet despite a property market
that is still struggling to emerge from the Asian economic crisis
and the bursting of the tech industry bubble.

"People just didn't understand why the economic crisis came,
and many turned to feng shui," Yap said. "It's now very popular
and I'm getting a bit tired because there's so much business."

Yap has told the government it just needs to alter a giant
statue of a merlion facing Singapore on adjacent Sentosa island.

"It's always biting at Singapore, it's terrible. The economy
would be really, really good if they just turned its head."