'Feng shui' trend catching on in Indonesian society
'Feng shui' trend catching on in Indonesian society
JAKARTA (JP): Many Indonesians nowadays practice Feng shui, which was imported from China a long time ago, not only because this Chinese teaching of the secrets of wind and water is considered apt, but also because Indonesians, like many other Asians, believe in supernatural phenomena that rule human affairs.
As Asiaweek magazine said in a recent report on "three pillars of Asian society: fate, face and family", Indonesians, too, believe in fate and many of them believe in Feng shui, probably because the teaching gives some relief to those destined to bear a hard life.
"There are three kinds of Feng Shui: the thien or heaven, the ti or earth and the ren or human Feng Shui which we create for ourselves," said Malaysian Feng shui master and practitioner Lillian Too.
"We call the heaven one destiny. We can't do anything about that. But if you are born poor, don't worry because there are the two other Feng shui. The earth and human ones can be used to make our lives better," explained Too, who has published four Feng shui best-sellers.
Mauro Rahardjo, a Feng shui master who studied the teaching at the Oxford School of Architecture in England, said the earth and human Feng shui should go together. Its useless to have a house built perfectly according to Feng shui teachings, if the owner's behavior is defective as measured by his or her human Feng shui standards.
"It is more important to have good human Feng shui first and then consider the earth one, rather than having it the other way around. But of course it would be perfect if we could have both," he said, adding that the human Feng shui can be improved through meditation.
"Meditation increases the chi in our body. It helps you to achieve harmony within ourselves. Some people also use it for healing," Mauro added.
Not new
Such positive thinking has helped establish the popularity of Feng shui. Besides, Feng shui principles are not really new to many of Indonesia's ethnic groups. The Javanese, for example, have primbon. The Balinese have asta kosala kosali. No wonder a kind of convention exists in this country that says that architects must also know Feng shui. At a short course on Feng shui last year in Jakarta, more than half the participants were of non-Chinese origin.
Tiara, an architect working for an interior design company in North Jakarta, says knowledge of Feng shui is important in order to serve her clients better.
"When we deal with believers we have to know the direction in which their houses should face, where to install a door and even how many steps the stairs in their houses should have," she explained.
"If you take a better look at buildings on Jalan Sudirman, it will become obvious that Feng shui principles are employed, even though some proprietors refuse to acknowledging it. Chase Plaza, for example, it is perfect in all its arrangements," A.S.Udin, a Feng shui consultant, said during a recent seminar on Feng shui.
Some Indonesian tycoons have even brought in their own guru from Tibet for advice, said Indra Gunawan, a director of the Gramedia group of companies which organized the seminar.
Putu Widiadana, an architect working for the Paramaloka Design Engineering Consultants company, confirmed that many Indonesian tycoons, especially those of Chinese origin, apply Feng shui principles when building banks and office buildings.
"Some of them are even willing to alter their properties if a Feng shui master reads that there is something wrong. Sometimes they will say, `Why did you put a pillar here? It does not fit your Chinese zodiac'. They will move the pillar," Widiadana said.
Mauro said that many real estate and property owners have started to apply Feng shui principles for commercial reasons.
One of Mauro's clients has offices inside the Mulia Tower building on Jalan Gatot Subroto. Mauro helped design the office interior, which included advice on the direction in which objects should face, the size of the furniture and the colors of the rooms. The company asked him to read Feng shui because it wanted its commissioners and managers to be successful.
Mauro is currently employed by the developers of Kota Tiga Raksa and Permata Medialand, a subsidiary of the Gramedia group active in the property business.
The Semarang-based newspaper Suara Merdeka, along with a few others, even has a special column on Feng shui.
It is certainly true that Feng shui provides good fortune to those who can read it. In Indonesia, the tariff for reading the Feng shui for a single room in a house can be as high as Rp 2.5 million (US$1,179). In Hong Kong, it can be as high as HK$ 4,000 (US$517.46) a room, said Udin.
Practical basics
But there are some practical basics that we can learn ourselves. These are as follows:
* According to the Pa kua and its trigrams contained in the I- ching, the Book of Changes, there are eight important situations in life. They concern marriage, fame, wealth, family, knowledge, career, social life and children. Each of these is symbolized by a certain direction of the compass. Marriage belongs to the southwest, fame to the south, wealth to the southeast, family (and health) to the east, knowledge to the northeast, careers to the north, social life to the northwest and children to the west.
* However, a relative compass direction taught by well-known Feng shui master Professor Lin Yun of Hong Kong says that direction is relative, therefore the orientation of all the objects is relative to the house's main entrance. For example, the marriage direction is not to the southwest but to the right behind the main entrance.
Under the direction system, spots or corners must be activated. To stimulate, say, the wealth corner, we have to activate the southeast corner of a house, a bedroom and or office. How? By putting certain objects that are capable of catching good chi and that are considered symbols of good things (according to Chinese philosophical standards) such as plants, flowers, a wind chime or an aquarium in those corners. But again, objects to be put in those corners should not harm our Feng Shui substance -- water, metal, wood, earth and fire -- which is determined by the hour, date, month and year of our birth. And all should be in balance: A small aquarium is better than a big pond which surrounds a whole house.
* For residential houses, rooms which have to be taken into greater considerations are bedrooms, toilets, storage rooms and kitchens. Toilets can flush out our bad luck. Storage rooms hold the bad luck and kitchens burn it. So, build them only on your bad-luck locations and have them face your bad-luck directions to hamper misfortunes.
Using the hour, date, month and year of your birthday, you can find your kua and lo shu numbers (one to nine) to find out which directions and locations are good for you and which are not. Kua and lo shu numbers are fixed and are usually contained in Feng shui books. Those born in the period from Feb.2, 1965 to Jan.20, 1966, for instance, are categorized under the number 7 (for females) and 8 (for males). The best directions and locations for women with the number 7 are northwest, southwest, northeast and west. So, these number-7 women should face their bedrooms and study the room in those directions. Their toilets, kitchens or storage rooms should not be placed in these four good locations. For families where spouses have different good directions and locations the arrangement of rooms is usually based on the best direction and location of the bread-winner.
* Other simple Feng shui principles for residents are: Bedrooms should not face the kitchen directly, bathrooms should not face the main door. Avoid spiral steps. Avoid long corridors. Plants are good for a house. So is a small indoor fish pond on the left side of the main door.
Too gives one last piece of advice: On no account put the fish pond on the right side of the main door because husbands will then tend to keep another women.(als)