Feng Shui

One of my most favorite Chinese inventions is Feng Shui. I have been practicing it for about twelve years, and it has taken an important role in my life. Feng Shui is an art of ancient Chinese wisdom mostly applying to the way of building, furnishing, and maintaining of homes. It balances and harmonizes our living environment using the yin-yang(female-male) dualism.
The major way for more personal and advanced Feng Shui is finding the kua number and its heaven’s direction; to calculate it, a person needs to know the formula, the sex, and date of birth. A wide spread form of Feng Shui is the style which uses symbolism because it is less restrictive and applies to every person.

General wisdom of Feng Shui symbolism

Chi is a positive energy which brings life into the home. A clean, maintained doorway welcomes the chi energy and lets it enter the home. Once the chi is inside, it should flow freely through the rooms and harmonize the home. Clutter, mess, and dirt derail the chi, or obstruct it from continuing its flow. This causes “dead “ corners, or stagnating rooms in which people do not like to stay for longer and have an urge to leave.
Also pillars in front of the main doors in the hallways can cause chi to turn around and walk away from the home. We can prevent this by placing climbing plants, or decorative screens in front of the pillars.
Mirrors play an important role in Feng Shui. They can harm or protect the owner of the home, depending on whether he or she can use their magical powers. Mirrors in the bedroom reflecting a sleeping person can cause nightmares, split personalities, or even bring another person into marriage – mostly a lover for the husband. It is recommended to cover them for night. A positive usage of mirrors is to strategically place them in dark rooms or hallways to increase light and brighten up spaces. A mirror reflecting a dining table will double the food on it and make sure that the home owners will always have enough food for the whole family.
Water symbolizes finances and its usage in homes should be given extra attention. Swimming pools that take over the majority of the backyard symbolize excess of water which will drawn family’s money; water on posters, paintings, and in aquariums in the bedrooms cause financial and relationship troubles for those occupying it. Paintings of water features placed on the wall behind one’s back in the office area lead to missed opportunities in the career field. To activate wealth, place a pond with goldfish on the left side of the main door (i.e., standing inside looking out) in the front yard. A model of a sailing ship loaded with cat gold, symbolizing the treasures brought by merchants from their journeys, placed on a side table in a family or living room pointing inwards, as if sailing into the house, will bring wealth for the home.
Plants or cut flowers should not occupy the bedroom either; their strong yang energy can cause sleepless nights. They will have a positive impact on the house when placed in living or family rooms to cheer up family communication. Leaves of the plants should be of smooth and curved shapes. Pointed, blade shaped leaves, like the ones of the mother in law’s tongue and thorny cacti will cause harm inside of the home, sending out deadly energy, they are better kept outdoors to protect the home from intruders. Lemon trees bring wealth and fertility to a family; they can be placed in a hallway or outside on a patio. Dead plants spread only negative yin energy and should be thrown away. Interestingly, paintings of flowers in the bedroom bring romance to young couples, but in the later years of marriage they cause the husband to develop a roving eye for younger lovers.
Electronics like stereos and TV’s should be kept out of the bedrooms or children’s rooms because their static sends out disturbing negative energy which can cause disturbed sleep and insomnia.



Too, Lillian. Das Grosse Buch Feng Shui. Koeln: Koenemann, 2000.
---. Lillian Too’s Easy-to-Use Feng Shui for Love. London: Collins & Brown Limited, 2000.

Organs for Sale

What happened to the famous moral of Chinese wisdom in the recent decades? Why does the news get filled with increasing number of horror stories coming from China, showing how little they appreciate human lives? Not only do they not care enough about their trade partners worldwide, which we can infer from recent food and medicine poisonings, but their own people have to pay a high price for the economic profits of this Asian tiger.
Although China made selling of organs illegal in 2006, the human organs industry is in full bloom. The high demand for human organs on the national and international side, and an extended usage of death penalty in China create a perfect relation to support this phenomenon.
The “transplant tourists” from Japan, USA, European and other wealthy countries come to China to buy new livers, kidneys, or hearts from hospitals supported by the Chinese government for profit purposes, and go through the operation procedures while still visiting the country. The organs are mostly harvested from executed prisoners and victims of accidents, but the black market does not even mind stealing organs from healthy people while still alive. Many movie directors have been touched by this infamous and persisting issue. As an example, Hong Kong director Chi-Leung shows how the black organ market functions in the movie Koma.
With demands of international organizations for increased protection of human rights, and Olympics 2008 approaching, Chinese government recently banned the sale of human organs. While China has made public efforts to eliminate the organ trade, both rumors of government supported sale and the black market trade still exist.


“Keen demand fuels global trade in body parts.” CNN. 6 Aug. 2007.
<http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/06/organs.transplant.reut/index.html>.
”Organ Procurement And Judicial Execution In China.” Human Rights
Watch. Aug. 1994. <http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/china1/china_948.htm>.