KEY POINTS:
Forget about North Korea's nuclear bomb. What if China has developed a secret weapon based on the ancient skill of feng shui? And what if they tested it - to devastating effect - in Hong Kong while it was still under British rule?
Crazy? Impossible? After having a
feng shui tour of Hong Kong I'm not so sure.
Feng shui - literally wind and water - is the art of harmonising natural energy flows. It was originally developed to identify favourable gravesites, but has become hugely influential for the siting and design of homes, office buildings, recreational facilities and just about everything else (including, by the way, in New Zealand).
"I bought the house picked for me by a feng shui master," said my Hong Kong guide, the urbane Denny Ip. "I wanted to buy a bigger, cheaper one but he said that would not be suitable. Now I feel very comfortable in the house he chose. It has good feng shui."
And that concern for good feng shui is far from unusual, as a wander round the glittering modern city centre with Ip quickly reveals.
The British, he points out, sited Government House, home of the Governor from 1946 until the area returned to China in 1997, on one of the colony's energy nodes.
Hong Kong moguls like Li Ka-shing, ranked by Forbes magazine as the 10th richest man in the world, wouldn't dream of having their offices in a building with bad feng shui. Indeed, Li's office is on the lucky 70th floor of the Cheung Kong Center, although it is actually only 68 stories high, and the building itself is built at an angle across its site to improve its energy.
The landmark HSBC building - second home of what by some measures is the world's largest bank - had its escalators demolished and rebuilt to make better use of the area's strong energy flows after the directors opted for the advice of a feng shui master ahead of the views of the building's London architect Norman Foster.
The new building was even opened at 2am because the master said that would be the most propitious time.
Outside stand Hong Kong's magnificent bronze feng shui lions, cast in 1935 to improve the feng shui of the earlier headquarters and, Ip says, regarded as important sources of good fortune.
That message was underlined while I watched with a steady stream of people, mostly elderly, walking up to the lions to stroke or pat them, some even rubbing inside their ferocious mouths, before continuing on their way.
"People think touching them is lucky," says Ip. "No one wants to see them moved because every time they have been, bad things have happened to Hong Kong.
"The first time they were moved the Japanese captured Hong Kong - you can still see the bullet holes in them from that time - and the latest time there was a stock market crash."
In Hong Kong feng shui rules. When Australian millionaire Alan Bond went broke no one here was surprised because his landmark local headquarters had a fountain whose water splashed away. "Water represents money," says Ip, "so that fountain symbolised money just flowing away."
We wandered down to see the Bond building in its new life as the Lippo Centre, its Chinese owners having carefully transformed the fountain into a reflective pool, with no water running away. "It is now a good building and the company is very successful."
What works for companies also works for countries. The amazing commercial success of Hong Kong is credited to the good feng shui of the area due to its position at the tail of a dragon - the end of the Guangdong Mountains - with a mountain behind and water in front.
But if you can design buildings to achieve a positive effect then logic suggests you can also design them to send out negative energy.
And whether by accident or design that is certainly what happened when the Bank of China, financial arm of the Chinese Government, decided to erect an impressive headquarters in Hong Kong in 1982.
To design it they chose probably the most celebrated Chinese architect in the world, Ieoh Ming Pei, born in Canton but now based in New York, whose credits include the new wing of the National Gallery in Washington, the Javits Convention Centre in New York, the Pyramide du Louvre in Paris and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
To maximise the use of the site, under Hong Kong's building rules, Pei chose to build a 70-storey tower based on a series of triangles.
Unfortunately that decision had huge feng shui ramifications which caused chaos in the business area
"It is a beautiful building," says Ip, "and it has won a lot of architectural awards but the feng shui masters say it is very dangerous.
"In feng shui a triangle is very bad because it is like three daggers poised to stab and it sends out very bad energy."
One of those sharp daggers pointed at Government House, then still home of the British Governor, and one of the so-called dragon's dens where Hong Kong's energy is focused.
According to Ip, the British obviously realised what was going on, because they promptly built a circular pool in the garden, the circle to bounce off negative energy and the pool to use the favourable influence of water.
Nevertheless, he says, after the territory returned to Chinese control the first chief executive Tung Chee Hwa "refused to live there because of the bad influence of the Bank of China building. The present chief executive [Donald Tsang] does live there but I am told a feng shui master has done a lot of work with colours to make it better."
Another of the Bank of China's daggers pointed at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and, Ip says, in 1988, as the new building was nearing completion, "the stock market had a huge crash".
In recent years huge efforts have been made to reduce the bad vibes caused by the triangular building including, on the advice of a feng shui master, installing a couple of big trees on the top floor. Has that helped? "I hope so," says Ip, "but maybe not much. The last three general managers of that bank are in jail."
The baleful effects should also have been mitigated by a recently built motorway which curves around the front of the bank like a river but, unfortunately, that has created fresh difficulties. "Having the road flow past like that is good for the Bank of China but the roadway is like a curved dagger aimed at the Legislative Council building [home of Hong Kong's new partially-elected governing body] and they have had a lot of problems."
Once you know what to look for the signs of feng shui are everywhere in Hong Kong.
The new Standard Chartered Bank building, for instance, is angled across its site and has octagonal ventilation holes to maximise the good energy, while out front is a huge stone ball to ward off any bad energy from a nasty corner of the adjacent Hong Kong Club.
The Sun Hung Kai Centre, having learned from the Bond experience, has a fountain outside where the water actually flows inwards so, as Ip points out, "the money and energy stays in the building."
Even the new Hong Kong Airport terminal building has a shape like a giant tick at the end of every section of roof to prevent bad energy getting in. You may scoff but my Cathay Pacific flight took off safely and on time. You can't ask for more than that.
* Jim Eagles visited Hong Kong as guest of Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Checklist
Honk Kong
Getting there
Cathay Pacific has daily flights from Auckland to Hong Kong. Right now there is a special online fare available of $1549, which includes all fuel surcharges and taxes, for return economy class travel between Auckland and Hong Kong. This fare must be purchased by May 15, and is available for departures before August 10. For details see www.cathaypacific.co.nz.
Further information
Hong Kong Tourism Board
Web: www.discoverhongkong.com/newzealand
Tel: 09 307-2580
