THE C CIRCLE

Feng shui. Many of us Filipinos are now practicing this. Maybe because of the “luck” they say practicing feng shui brings. But what really is feng shui?

The word feng shui (pronounced ‘foong-shway’) comes from two Chinese words - feng which means air and shui

means water. It is the ancient Chinese art of harnessing the heavens and the earth to bring health, wealth and good fortune, by tuning in to the environment, seasonal changes, tides and vibrations of nature.

In countries like Hong Kong and Taiwan, many of the buildings have feng shui inspired features, and these two states have among the highest per capita income in the world, closely followed in Asia by Singapore and Malaysia, two other advanced economies. Many businessmen in these countries take feng shui seriously.

Some of the famous believers of feng shui are:

• The HSBC Group (its head offices designed with advice from a feng shui practitioner.)
• Lillian Too (the ex-managing director of the Grindlays Dao Heng bank in Hong Kong and former deputy chairman of the billion dollar company that owns Harvey Nichols, not only believes implicitly in feng shui but is the best known writer on the subject.)
• Donald Trump and Richard Branson (have both used the services of feng shui practitioners and look how successful they are!)
• Anita Roddick (whose Body Shop chain uses feng shui principles in its store design.)

Some of the basics that we must learn if we want to apply feng shui in our daily life is to learn how to get our Chinese animal sign and element.

How to determine our sign? In determining our sign, take the last two digits from the year in which you were born. If the number is greater than 11, subtract 12 from it. Keep on subtracting until you have a number less than 12. Then read off your sign from the table below:

ANIMAL BIRTH YEAR

0 - Rat

1 - Ox

2 - Tiger

3 - Rabbit

4 - Dragon

5 -Snake

6 -Horse

7 - Goat (Sheep)

8 - Monkey

9 - Cock (Rooster)

10 - Dog

11 - Pig

12 - Rat

How to determine our element? To check the element of our year of birth, keep subtracting 10 from the last two digits of your year of birth until you reach a number which is 10 or less, then read your element off from the table below:

ELEMENT OF BIRTH YEAR

0 - Metal

1 - Metal

2 - Water

3 - Water

4 - Wood

5 - Wood

6 - Fire

7 - Fire

8 - Earth

9 - Earth

10 - Metal

Aside from what I have written above, there are still lots of feng shui principles that we have to learn to fully maximize and put it in action. However, just like a feng shui practitioner have said - feng shui can contribute only 30% of luck. The 70% has to come from how we work, deal with others, and trust God.

More feng shui stuffs on my next posts.