Abstract: Feng Shui (風水) is an ancient Chinese environmental philosophy aiming at improving our fortune. Well known and indeed a Chinese-dominant city, Hong Kong is where you can find this ancient Chinese culture. This article aims to spot out the Feng Shui elements that one can see in virtual and real Hong Kong. At the same time, we will decipher this Chinese philosophy, including its few key ideas, and its possible complication. Despite its complexity, at the end we will present a few Feng Shui tips, simple and effective guaranteed, to boost your fortune.
Image source: Wikipedia
Video games covered:
Kowloon's Gate (Sony Music Entertainment. PlayStation :1997)
Fear Effect (Eidos Interactive. PlayStation: 2000)
Shenmue II (Sega. Dreamcast: 2001, Xbox: 2002)
Kowloon Magic (Bun Fun Factory: Microsoft Winodws: 2003)
Sleeping Dogs (Square Enix. PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Microsoft Windows: 2012)
Shadowrun: Hong Kong (Harebrained Schemes. Microsoft Windows/OS X/Linux: 2015)
Life energy
In Shadowrun: Hong Kong, you can find a term called "qi" in its Feng Shui missions.
Mentioning of qi in the Kowloon Walled City Feng Shui side mission in Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Mentioning of qi in the Wuxing building Feng Shui mission of Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Qi (氣, also known as Chi, pronounced as chee in English) is indeed the key concept of Feng Shui. Feng Shui begins with the common human belief that all forms of life are incredible. Just see how magical it is to see a life grows, evolves and even reproduces. Some ancient Chinese believed that some supernatural energy named qi should have been behind all these wonderful processes. Therefore, people believed that if we could capture this supernatural energy, we could take advantage of its magical power to boost our fortune in terms of health, wealth, academic and career success.
Like typical lives, life energy also has preferences on where to stay. Feng Shui is all about observing the geographical and environmental characteristics of places to determine where the life energy likes to stay. Once we figure out these spots, we move apartments, offices and even graves of our parents there to take advantage of the life energy.
Concerning where life energy likes to stay, the Chinese words composing the name of this philosophy give us some hints. The first word, Feng, refers to wind. The second word, Shui, refers to water. Wind is thought to blow the life energy away, while water is a medium favoring the stay of the energy. So people should aim at places where strong wind are blocked yet gentle water flow is around. Good examples of such places are valleys which has hills to block wind blow, and rivers, ponds, lakes or harbor to capture the water. In fact, these places are usually calm, stable and pleasant. Plants and animals tend to live there comfortably and harmoniously. Humans staying there are likely to be happy and healthy. This probably boosts people's study and work efficiency, and increases their chance to be successful.
Hong Kong is often considered to have met the above favorable geographical characteristics. Around Victoria Harbor where the heart of the city is located, there are hills blocking strong wind. As a result, the water of Victoria Harbor itself tends to be flowing gently. All these factors are considered to be pull factors for life energy and have brought about stability and prosperity from Feng Shui perspective.
In fact, on Kowloon which is north of the harbor, some people regard the nine (some even claim more) mountain ranges as the apparition of Feng Shui dragons, an mystic creature bring precious Qi and hence good fortune. Some people thus believe it to be the origin of its Chinese name of Kowloon, 九龍, literally means nine dragons. In Kowloon Magic, this nine-dragon story of Kowloon is told, and described to be needed to activate an underground magic circle which could make people's wishes come true.
What a dragon looks like in Chinese Feng Shui. Note the ups and downs along the back of the body, which looks like mountain ranges. Source: Wikipedia
Introduction of Kowloon Magic describing the nine dragons and the magic matrix
These mountain ranges all bow to the Hong Kong Island on the south side of the harbor. The Island is thus regarded by some people as a Feng Shui Island. The song Hong Kong Kowloon (complete lyric can be found here) included in Sleeping Dogs has the following description on Hong Kong Island.
一個風水島 呢度係中國國寶 (translated as: here we have a Feng Shui Island, a national treasure of China)
Viewing Victoria Harbour and Kowloon Peninsula from Hong Kong Island in 1900. You could see the mountain ranges of Kowloon. Source: Information Services Department, Hong Kong
In fact, the mountain ranges by their own help the harbor to become an excellent ship shelter and were instrumental for British to establish the city as its British colony and its subsequent development as a trading center.
Victoria Harbor surrounded by hills. Source: Wikipedia
The aerial view of Hong Kong. Note the Victoria Harbor is surrounded by hills from all sides. Source: Bing map.
Meanwhile, the human constructions by themselves should not break the overall harmony of the environment. One simple rule is the avoidance of sharp edges which could look like weapons. Most major buildings including the government ones has Feng Shui masters consulted before the design is confirmed so you don't see them breaking this rule. However, the design of a Hong Kong landmark called the Bank of China tower (中銀大廈) skipped the consultation and hence breaks it. Some people accuse its tall and thin tower with sharped points looks like a knife or blade, breaking the harmony of the environment and hence bringing bad luck to occupants of buildings nearby, including poor earnings and even deaths. For more information, please check this article.
The Bank of China Tower
After all, Feng Shui is all about a harmonious environment.
Apparent complication
Suitable human addition to the environment is believed to be able to improve the Feng Shui of a place. In the video game Shadowrun: Hong Kong, you are asked to disrupt qi flow of a fictitious Wuxing building so as to stop the fortune of the inhabitant corporation. You can find the following items in the list of things that you need to destroy.
Garden
Fountain
Fire at the entrance of the main office
Windows and mirrors
Golden altar
A mission on disturbing qi flow in Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Some of them has no practical use but they are there for Feng Shui purpose, while some others seem typical in living and office settings but are indeed regarded as having Feng Shui effect. Gardens and fountains are for introducing more water that the life energy likes. Flame is for amplifying the life energy in a given space. Windows, mirrors and golden altars to redirect and hence correct life energy flow, just like what they do with light. A special kind of mirror known as the Bagua mirror (八卦鏡) appears in the virtual Hong Kong of Kowloon's Gate to redirect the flow of qi. The same mirror can also be found in some fortune teller shops in Shenmue II.
A Bagua mirror at the back of a fortune teller in Shenmue II
In real Hong Kong, some Feng Shui masters even ask you to place some other strange accessories such as towers and mystic animal statues, so as to get help from other supernatural powers to change life energy flow.
Besides positioning, orientation is also important. All the above additions are believed to have no effect or even harm if their orientations are incorrect. That is why you see in the "Bad Luck" mission of Sleeping Dogs, the main characters changed the orientation of a piano in order to bring bad luck to the mansion resident. In real Hong Kong, the main gate to Hong Kong Disneyland was shifted in 2005 by twelve degrees in their building plans.
To confirm the correct orientations, a Feng Shui compass called Luopan (羅盤) is used. It is basically a directional finder just like a conventional compass. But in addition there are various concentric rings of Feng Shui formula on its surface. Each formula has its own interpretation on the various orientations and their presence of the Luopan surface helps Feng Shui master figure out the particular interpretation of a direction handy.
The multiple layers of concentric circles on a Feng Shui compass. Source: Wikipedia
In particular, the innermost ring illustrates the Bagua (八卦) which can be found in Bagua mirror mentioned above. Bagua is characterized by the use of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken" to enumerate eight different combinations. At the beginning, Bagua was used to categorize main natural phenomena into eight groups: Sky (天/乾), Earth (地/坤), Water (水/坎), Fire (火/離), Thunder (雷/震), Wind (風/巽), Mountain (山/艮) and Marsh (澤/兌). Later on, these categories are associated with different seasons, directions and later on personalities and even specific areas of our lives according to proximity of each group to the eight natural phenomena.
The eight elements of a Bague and their trigram representation. Source: Wikipedia
A Bagua map showing one way to associate directions with specific areas of your life. Source: about.com. Photo Credit: Rodika Tchi
The formula plate is modeled as the final combat ground of Fear Effect (though the contents on the plate aren't correct), while the Feng Shui compass itself is the item you should use in Kowloon's Gate to adjust the orientation of Bagua Mirror. You can also find the compass in same fortune teller shops in Shenmue II.
The final stage of Fear Effect on a Feng Shui formula plate
The Feng Shui compass in Kowloon's Gate
A Feng Shui compass (right) next to a Bagua mirror (left) in Shenmue II
Back to basic
With numerous Feng Shui structures, accessories, orientations and formula, the philosophy now sounds sophisticated and a bit scary, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I think we can still easily take advantage of Feng Shui as long as we recall the central idea of this philosophy: harmony between human construction and Nature. With that in mind, some simple actions are already enough to improve the Feng Shui of our own living and working environments.
For example, in the same Wuxing building Feng Shui breaking mission in Shadowrun: Hong Kong, ways to disrupt qi flow includes moving partitions such that the overall partitioning isn't symmetric and messing up office desks and chairs. In its another side mission which fixes the Feng Shui of Kowloon Walled City, all the action items are just fixes of things back to original working conditions, including ripping the offending sparking wire off the wall, making sewage pipe flow again, and putting out the fire on tires.
Fixing the Feng Shui of Kowloon walled city in Shadownrun: Hong Kong
In your own living and working environment, keep the space neat and tidy. Also make sure that all the facilities such as ventilation and sewage are in good working conditions. Last but not least, avoid strange structures and accessories unless you identify a real need. These actions help setting up an environment similar to the harmonious Nature. In such an environment, I am sure your mood would be excellent and you will stay healthy. Your work efficiency would also improve and helps you bring about even more success.
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