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Feng Shui

Feng shui divines the site for a new Seoul

Feng shui divines the site for a new Seoul
By Richard Lloyd Parry

YONGI-KONGJU is a picturesque area by any standard but, in the eyes of Lhee Dae Woo, it is also a land of invisible energy and spiritual riches. The hills on its perimeter are more than just a pleasant weekend hike — they represent a white tiger and a coiled blue dragon. The nearby Silk River is not only a place for fishing — its winding course describes a magical crane flying through the heavens with an egg under its wing.
For Mr Lhee is a geomancer, an adept of the ancient oriental philosophy of feng shui. By divining the invisible lines of energy which run across the landscape, experts such as Mr Lhee advise on the design and position of new buildings and the best arrangement of rooms.

And in Yongi-Kongju, they face their biggest and most important project ever. If all goes to plan, over the next quarter of a century this quiet farming area will be transformed. Multiple bridges will span the Silk River; the green paddy fields will sprout high-rise offices and government ministries; and half a million people will live here.



For the Yongi-Kongju area is to be the location of one of the most ambitious national projects of the 21st century — the removal of South Korea’s administrative capital from its present location in Seoul.

The moving of the capital, which was formally announced last month, has already provoked bitter controversy. Opponents of the plan, the personal project of President Roh, insist that it is a wasteful folly perpetrated for the most cynical political motives.

Its supporters, including Mr Lhee, regard it as an essential remedy to Seoul’s chronic overcrowding.

Since the idea was first floated 25 years ago, 400 geomancers have been consulted to find the ideal location for the new capital and for its most important building, the presidential palace or Blue House.

Now that the plan has been given the go-ahead at an estimated cost of 45.6 trillion won (£22.4 billion) 30 square miles of land has been earmarked in the Yongi-Kongju area. Construction is scheduled to start in 2008 and to be completed in 2012 when 80 government ministries and agencies will make the 100-mile move south from Seoul.

You don’t have to be a geomancer to see good reasons for all this.

Apart from being traffic-congested, crowded and haphazardly laid out, Seoul dominates South Korea like few other capitals in the world. Almost half of the country’s 48 million people live in the greater Seoul area and virtually all the country’s central government functions are concentrated there.

To add to the problems, Seoul is strategically vulnerable: just 20 miles to the north, across a fortified border, is communist North Korea, where tens of thousand of artillery pieces are poised to rain down missiles on the city in the event of war.

The relocation proposal was a plank of President Roh’s successful election in 2002, and laws permitting it were passed in the National Assembly last year. Polls show that 47 per cent of Koreans like the idea, although more than 50 per cent are against it.

“We will fight the relocation to the death!” promises a graffito on a wall in the Yongi-Kongju countryside. Understandably, people here are divided between those who welcome the economic benefits which it would bring to the area, and those who resist the compulsory purchase of their farms and homes.

Seoul people, too, are naturally opposed. Their city has been the capital since South Korea was created by the division of the country after the Second World War. For more than five centuries before that Seoul was the capital of the whole of Korea.

Foreign diplomats have little enthusiasm for an expensive and troublesome relocation from Seoul to a brand-new city two hours’ drive away

And however much Koreans complain about the capital’s inconveniences, few relish abandoning its many attractions. Its nightlife, entertainment, museums and galleries, schools and universities make it far and away the most diverse and exciting city in the country.
Groups opposed to the relocation have set up websites and lodged a legal appeal with the Constitutional Court. Having supported the legislation when it was first passed, the opposition Grand National Party now opposes it.

The party accuses President Roh of using the issue as a ploy to win over the five million voters of Chungcheong, the province which contains the new site and which will absorb the billions which come with it. Conservative by inclination, they are also key swing voters and in the presidential election they came out in favour of Mr Roh.



Everyone agrees that Seoul is becoming unmanageable. But it is argued that £22.4 billion could be better spent on salvaging it with improved public transport and measures to discourage cars and reduce pollution.

“Seoul is bloated, like an animal which has eaten too much, and it is very vulnerable to attack,” says Mr Lhee. “Such a state is very bad for the health of any creature. It is urgently necessary to change this situation.”


CAPITAL CHOICE

Canberra, Australia: When travel author Bill Bryson visited Australia’s capital for his book, Down Under, he was shown a promotional video entitled: “Canberra — It’s Got It All”. He renamed it: “Canberra — Why Wait for Death?”

Washington DC, USA: Renowned for its historic buildings but unbearably hot in the summer and bitterly cold in winter. The Rough Guide asks: Was the location chosen “to discourage leaders from making government a full-time job?”

Ankara, Turkey: Chosen by Kemal Ataturk ahead of Istanbul in 1923. “Ankara is a residential rather than a touristic city,” says the Insight Guide politely.

Ottawa, Canada: Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as capital ahead of Montreal and Toronto in 1857. One guide book says: “A bureaucratic labyrinth of little charm and character.”

Brasilia, Brazil: A “jumble of uninspiring skyscrapers, malls and massive empty spaces,” according to the Rough Guide

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1266091,00.html
 
This is LA, so even monkeys in zoo get feng shui adviser

With cats on Prozac, bunnies in sex therapy and dogs getting massages, the City of Los Angeles has taken the logical next step: hired a feng shui consultant to help to design a $7.4 million (£3.8 million) enclosure for three rare golden monkeys at Los Angeles Zoo.

The enclosure for the monkeys, one male and two females, has been designed to look like a rural Chinese village, with a roof made from large mesh netting draped over posts. Inside are several artificial trees suitable for climbing. There will also be sleeping quarters for the monkeys, and a viewing platform for the public.

The feng shui expert is an architect called Simona Mainini, based in Beverly Hills. She was paid a reported $4,500 for her work, the first feng shui deal for any zoo in America. Ms Mainini, originally from Italy and a senior instructor with the American Feng Shui Institute as well as an author and a lecturer at UCLA, said that she researched the habits of the monkeys by interviewing zoo employees, and did not so much change the design of the enclosure as make small tweaks to achieve “good qi” [pronounced chee].

For example, designers put the observation tower door in an unfavourable area, increasing the potential for accidents, lawsuits and arguments. She recommended that they move the door or add a fountain or water feature to “soften, with moisture, the harsh energy” in that area of the tower.

She also suggested that the designers should rotate the monkey holding building, to put it on a different angle. That would “transform the energy distribution” of the building and result in a “stronger potential for health and well-being”.

It would also promote fertility — important for a species with fewer than 10,000 left in the wild.

“It’s very experimental,” Ms Mainini told the Daily Breeze. “We don’t have any books on feng shui for monkeys. We have to assume that Darwin is correct and that there is a connection and what is good for humans is good for monkeys.” The golden monkeys will be lent to Los Angeles from China as part of a ten-year deal under which the city’s former mayor agreed to pay $100,000 a year for monkey research.

The species is easily recognisable by the blue faces, matching blue genitals, catlike meowing noises and long hair, which can make them look as though they have wings when they leap from tree to tree.

They each weigh about 13kg (30lb) and dine mainly on foliage. Typically, they live in groups of about 600, but hunting and deforestation is threatening to wipe out the species.

John Lewis, the general manager of the zoo, said: “The idea is to get people beyond looking at the animals so they experience how the animals and people live.” The three monkeys are due to arrive in Los Angeles by the end of the year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 381441.ece
 
Speaking about mirrors you pass in the dark and being scared of your own reflection:

Once, when I still lived in Germany (and single), I bought a novelty shower curtain on the Internet. It had the silhouette of Norman Bates' mother with a knife in her hand on it, and I thought it was a fantastic joke... until I actually hung it up.

Every time I took a shower (or even just went to the bathroom) that thing scared the living s**t out of me. After one week, I took it down and sold it to a coworker (who, no doubt, had stronger nerves than I). :roll:
 
Although the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank once had a reputation as hoaxers, scammers, bilkers and conmen they have always been into feng shui as the example of their Hong Kong Tower demonstrates.
HSBC Building Feng Shui Cannons via Atlas Obscura
The HSBC Building was designed to have excellent feng shui. It is positioned with a clear view of the harbor, as water is associated with prosperity; the ground floor is an open atrium where wind and positive qi can flow; and the escalators were built at an angle because evil spirits can only travel in a straight line.

The negative energy of the Bank of China Tower’s architecture, on the other hand, created some controversy. The pointed shapes of the tower look like sharp, knife-like edges, one pointing at the British Government House, and one pointing at the HSBC Building.
 
You can also see a lot of tower blocks with a big hole built into the middle of them (or not built, I suppose). This is also for feng shui reasons.

https://theculturetrip.com/asia/hon...me-buildings-in-hong-kong-have-holes-in-them/

dragon-gates-hong-kong-2.jpg
 
Is the Chinese government cursing Hong Kong by building structures that look like cobras? I'm going to go with 'no'.

I am going with "yes" because the King Cobra represents extreme good luck in Feng Shui. The more poisonous the snake the better the luck. LINK
 
I am going with "yes" because the King Cobra represents extreme good luck in Feng Shui. The more poisonous the snake the better the luck. LINK
I don't think that's related to Feng Shui - this is a list of general 'good omens'. Another item mentions Feng Shui but not the one about snakes.
 
I don't think that's related to Feng Shui - this is a list of general 'good omens'. Another item mentions Feng Shui but not the one about snakes.
I admit that the quality of the link isn't great, but cobras are often linked to nagas and dragons, both of which are very positive creatures. Snakes lack the whole negative Christian connotation in Feng Shui LINK. Yes, the item is chintzy and lame, but they symbolic use is what is important, and it wouldn't exist if the meaning was negative.
 
As you have probably gathered from my avatar, (accurate representation of my anatomy) dragons are my class enemy....
 
If I've understood feng shui properly (and I may very well not have), part of it is that the placing of objects in the home can create or focus a flow of energy.

Interestingly (to me at least), Bob Lazar, on the Joe Rogan podcast, stated that the components in the flying saucer engine he claims to have worked on were not physically connected to each other but that their positions relative to each other was what generated the energy needed to move the vehicle.
 
If I've understood feng shui properly (and I may very well not have), part of it is that the placing of objects in the home can create or focus a flow of energy. Interestingly (to me at least), Bob Lazar, on the Joe Rogan podcast, stated that the components in the flying saucer engine he claims to have worked on were not physically connected to each other but that their positions relative to each other was what generated the energy needed to move the vehicle.

I think the Lazar spaceship inference was that it was essentially wireless, as opposed to Feng Shui where the flow is qi.
 
One of my favourite comedians, the late Jeremy Hardy, once described feng shui as, "The ancient Chinese art of tidying up a bit."

Feng shui goes back around 3,500 years, but the way that the term is often currently used goes back to the 1970s.

Originally, feng shui was a ritualised system for positioning and orienting buildings. It combined ideas that are widespread throughout history in many cultures. Buildings were placed in supposedly auspicious locations, and oriented in accordance with the stars — and later according to the magnetic compass.

Ideas similar to this traditional form of feng shui are popular among those who ascribe "ancient wisdom" to the builders of stone circles, barrows, stone rows, and the like.

If it is true that the circle builders chose the location for their circle because of some belief in some form of Earth energy, and that they deliberately aligned their structures with celestial phenomena that were important to them, then this was pretty much their version of feng shui.

However, just because an idea is widespread and ancient, it does not mean that it has any scientific validity. Most belief systems, including modern ones, are a very human mixture of literal belief, symbolism, ritual, psychology, and cultural convention. An ancient geomancer may have sincerely believed in lines of Earth energy, or may simply have believed that a convention has a value of its own, regardless of its factual basis.

I would compare this to three very different things:
  • The Romans tried as far as possible to lay out even a temporary fort according to a standard template. There were practical advantages: everyone in the fort knew where to find everyone and everything. In the heat of battle, or under night time surprise attack, every defending soldier would know his way around the fort intuitively, somewhat like a sailor aboard his own ship which would remain the same whether it was in the North Sea or the Caribbean,
  • Even today, if you go into a large public building, whether it is a pub, restaurant, school, or hospital, you will already have a good intuition about where you are likely to find key locations such as a reception desk, toilets, lifts or stairs. No one ever explained, but you have worked it out from repeated exposure to convention and practicality.
  • If I drive to an unfamiliar small town or village in my own country, I have a good chance of knowing where to find the market place, civc buildings, shops, and the like. No one has ever taught me about town or village planning, and most of these places developed informally over centuries but, through a combination of common motives and conventions, many towns and villages have developed with similar structures.
There is an additional feature in a pre-modern society. Without modern heating, lighting and insulation, the positioning of buildings relative to sunrise, sunset, and prevailing winds, is important.

As is so often the case with human endeavour, a set of common sense ideas and social conventions developed a mystique. As soon as you have a system, you can have experts, and as soon as you are an expert, you have a role and a source of income and prestige. It is to the advantage of priests, witch doctors, geomancers, salesmen and marketing gurus to maintain and develop the mystique in order to consolidate their own positions.

Feng shui today has become a very western thing. Most of us do not have the freedom to build a new house, located and oriented as we would choose. However, anyone with a home can move the furniture about, put a couple of pot plants or ornaments in the right place, be careful about where they put mirrors, and feel that they are exercising some form of control over their environment. A certain type of person may take this to extremes by applying some supposed system such as feng shui. Another type of person will feel a need to pay an "expert" to do this for them.

There are obvious practical advantages to arranging your home or office carefully, consistently, and tidily, and grouping similar items and activities sensibly.

There are also intangible but real psychological advantages to feeling that everything is in its place for a good reason. It is part of the same mindset that has cyclists agreeing that a clean bicycle goes faster, and also part of the mindset that sailors have when they say "a place for everything and everything in its place."
 
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