'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)