I've wanted to blog about this for some time but couldn't get a clear story. Nevertheless there we a couple of stories from December.
Firstly there was recent office gossip about a senior trader who had been doing badly and put it down to bad feng shui. So he summoned a consultant in December to reorganize his office. My colleagues followed his trading performance closely and were amused to note it improved immediately (although subsequently dipped again), and were tempted to write "good performance due to favourable feng shui" in our weekly PL commentary.
Shortly after that I met a manager responsible for our premises at a social event and was able to ask him about it. He said that since many staff care about feng shui the management employ consultants to periodically check out the office for feng shui problems and deal with specific issues like our trader's office (link).
When my company first moved into the ICC building, the initial floor-plan was radically changed after feng shui experts pointed out inauspicious orientation of the desks. Also in a recent review hanging objects put up by staff were removed because they created a 'feng shui' hazard.
He also said the ICC building was designed to reflect positive energy on the neighborhood. Shortly afterwards I took this photo of the ICC at dawn from Wong Nai Chung gap near Parkview.
On our trading floor we have a dragon gong, which I think is for feng shui. The trading floor in Tokyo also had one.
We also have golden lions guarding the south-east side facing the water. I saw similar lions facing the water in the dance studio where I sometimes do tango classes.
Next to the ICC is a building called 'The Arch' which has a hole in the middle. One colleague told me this is auspicious as it 'lets the dragons to fly through from mountain to the water'. Ive not seen this principle written in any feng shui summaries but there are certainly many buildings with holes in them in Hong Kong.
Rika once told me about a 'feng shui war' between the HSBC and its nearby rival the Bank of China. The HSBC building is well known to have good feng shui (link, link) due to its location with its back to mountains, facing the harbour across a public square where good energy can accumulate, at junction of major roads coming down from the mountains ('dragon veins'), and a focal point between 5 major peaks ('dragons'). And of course it has 2 famous lions guarding its entrance.
The story goes that the Bank of China building was constructed higher than HSBC with aerials to monopolize good energy from above and uses triangles project bad energy down to the HSBC (and the British government house). Apparently HSBC took defensive steps to reflect this bad luck back on the BOC using things like mirrors and metal rods (link, link). But I've also read that BOC was unusual in being designed without consulting feng shui experts at all and as a result has terrible feng shui.
Where is the Ideal Feng Shui place to live in Hong Kong? According to one expert, its Parkview! due to its location in a focus between mountains : "Hong Kong Park View is the best place to live. This is rather significant since Jardine Lookout, Violet Hill and Wong Nai Chung Gap provide a good support for Hong Kong Park View! Such site is able to harness kind energy permeated". (link)
