Dragons and Feng Shui

Back in January (shame on me!) I was tagged by my cyber friend at Paradise Lost in Translation to follow these 'meme' instructions: open 'My Pictures' on your computer, go to the 4th folder and choose the 4th picture in that folder, tell the story of the picture and then photo tag 4 others to do the same.














So, better late than never, here is the 4th in the 4th: the beach at Repulse Bay taken last Autumn when a group of mothers met there for a morning with the children. It was a hot day and the young ones ended up in the water while the mothers chatted. Not bad for October; life's a beach.

The blue building in the background is part of The Repulse Bay; a large complex of apartments, health club, shopping mall and restaurants all built on the site of the once famous Repulse Bay Hotel which was knocked down in the 1980s to make way for a more profitable development.

The old hotel enjoyed 62 years as a centre for 'charm, chic and the Charleston'. Writers such as George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward stayed there and Marlon Brando was a guest in the 1950s. For years it could only be reached by boat and was considered a romantic hideaway.

At boarding school in post-war England where rationing was still in force, my mother had a friend whose parents lived in plentiful Hong Kong and her mouth would water in envy at the stories this girl recounted of meals out at the The Repulse Bay Hotel where Baked Alaska was served for pudding. And yet, it is Hong Kong's very nature to be constantly renewing and rebuilding itself and as a result there are few old buildings to be found.

The second blue building, just visible on the right of my photo, is the building with the hole which towers over what remains of the old hotel and is also part of the same complex.













The hole is to all to do with feng shui and is there because the building was built so close to the mountain which is where the dragons reside. On the other side of the building is the ocean and if dragons are not allowed to drink then that's not good and you get bad ch'i.

To feng shui masters the earth is a living organism and its breath is ch'i, the 'dragon vapour'. There are good and bad locations for siting buildings on hills; ideal is the south slope flanked by the arms of the hill. The dragon's tail should be avoided lest you anger the beast and it flicks the building down - practical advice in China where earthquakes are relatively common.

The principles might sound like common sense dressed up as hocus pocus but the fact remains that when feng shui was outlawed in mainland China after the revolution most of the masters of the ancient philosophy were driven across the border into Hong Kong. Today 90% of Hong Kong Chinese are believers and there are more than 10,000 feng shui teachers.

One building which is said to occupy one of the very best feng shui sites in Hong Kong is the HSBC building. Designed by Norman Foster, it is located on a dragon's vein, which runs down to the sea from Victoria Peak. So as not to obstruct the flow of the vein the ground floor was left open for public use and it is here on a Sunday morning that the chatter of thousands of Filipina helpers can be heard as they meet friends, share picnics and news from home. Its view of the waters of Victoria Harbour is important as water symbolises the inflow of money. So important in fact, that the bank gave the government money to build a park and a low-lying garage to ensure the harbour view would be unobstructed.














By contrast the designers of the nearby Bank of China got it all wrong. Whilst this bank lies on the same vein as the HSBC and was opened on 8.8.88, the most auspicious day in the Chinese calendar the design, based on triangles, is considered too aggressive. The sharp corners are like daggers: some appear to point inwards, while one points at Hong Kong's Legislative Council Building. From certain angles the building resembles a meat cleaver and the two 'chopsticks' on top of the building point upwards, like incense sticks used as a memorial to the dead. Considering the pitfalls, you have to wonder who'd be an architect in Hong Kong? And yet, given the money and prestige involved in designing one of the island's landmark buildings, I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of takers.

I'm now supposed to tag four other bloggers with this meme and yet most of those I read have done it already, with considerably more passion and flair than my own execution. I have to admit, I am not comfortable with such tasks - they smack of school essays and the words never quite seem to flow. Besides which, four is considered an unlucky number by most Chinese. We live in the fourth house in a row and yet our house bears the number five. So I think I'll just leave it open and hope that the dragon in this unruly piece is not offended. If you feel like picking up the tag and running with it, go ahead. If not, then just let sleeping dragons lie.