Unswayed by Feng Shui
I went without beer for several days. I drank water. I even gagged down
some Ginseng tea. All this to prepare to read The Elements of Feng Shui by Man-Ho Kwok with Joanne O’Brien. It’s a shame I gave up the beer; the
ancient Chinese concept of geomancy, or the “ability to allow for the
unhindered circulation of chi’i, or life breath, in relation to dwellings of
the living and of the dead,” might have made more sense to me if I’d been
stumbling drunk. The book was full of indecipherable and incongruous diagrams,
cute Chinese fables, and tips for the amateur geomancer like, “You should avoid
buying a house built on a steep hillside and facing a deep valley since this
could bring about mental illness.” Trying to understand this book could bring
about mental illness.
My first taste of Feng Shui came several months ago when the I met with
a young architect who had designed a country home for a couple using its
principles to assure that chi’i flowed harmoniously through the structure,
unimpeded by a poorly placed door or a tree in front of the entrance. As he
clicked through a slide show of his project, I oohed and ahhed over the house,
which I sincerely liked, but one eyebrow was raised permanently all the way up
to my hairline as he talked about stimulating wealth with windchimes or
crystals and how the power in a room is concentrated in the corner farthest
from the door. He assured me that Feng Shui was not his primary design
tool, but he used it in conjunction with biobiology and geobiology to promote
harmony in his houses.
I tried to roll with him on this, but when he argued that Feng Shui was
simply “common sense” and that there had to be something to it “since the
Chinese had been practicing it for thousands of years,” he lost me. I’m sorry,
but putting a bowl of goldfish in your living room to increase financial
prosperity isn’t common sense. And the Chinese have been eating live monkey
brains for thousands of years, but that doesn’t make it right.
When I finally beat a retreat from his shrine-bedecked apartment, he said he’d
be leaving town in two weeks for Montana for a job designing an entire
community using his architectural philosophy. He’d be gone two years. “Wow,
that’s great. Job security,” I said, ever practical. “Well, I don’t get paid,
but I get room and board.” I thought about giving him a bowl of goldfish as a
parting gift.
My goldfish love to read your letters. Mail ’em to:
PO Box 49066,
Austin, TX 78765 or e-mail ’em to Suzebe@aol.com
This article appears in September 15 • 1995 and September 15 • 1995 (Cover).