Hippy claptrap? 'Not so' say millions of Chinese and an increasingly large number of Westerners. One of the largest banks in the world, the HSBC Group, had its head office designed with advice from a feng-shui practitioner. Billionaire Donald Trump has his own feng-shui Master who advises him on such things as which way his doors should hang and where to position a water feature in his home and Richard Branson looks increasingly to feng-shui to give him that extra edge. It is no surprise then that Hong Kong and Taiwan, where many buildings designed and built with feng-shui inspired features, have amongst the highest per capita income in the world.

Feng-shui litereally means wind water and the ancient Chinese believed that the clouds which consist of wind and water are the intermediaries between heaven and earth. Water sustains every living thing on our planet and it is the wind that carries this water - both then are essential to our survival. Feng-shui is based on the invisible life energy force, called ch'i in Chinese. It is the levels of ch'i both within our own bodies and in our surroundings which feng-shui aficionados believe affects how successful we are in every aspect of our lives. In other words, the position of your bed, placing a wind-chime or mirror in a certain place or adding water features to your garden could drastically affect your life.

Feng-shui is a complicated mixture of science and belief and it is not surprising that most people employ the services of a feng-shui practitioner or master to look at their home and advise on what things could be changed to attract and retain more ch'i. There are several different schools of feng-shui but the most common amongst practitioners in the west is the Compass School or Wang Chih. This school places great stress on the eight Trigrams, the Pa Kua, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Balances and the Constellations, assigning a place of minor importance to the landscape configurations of the earth. It sounds complicated but read on and the mysteries of feng-shui will hopefully become more unravelled.

The Eight Trigrams

The eight ancient trigrams stem from Yin and Yang which in turn represents the balance of life and nature in Chinese philosophy. For example, light and dark, hot and cold, male and female etc. This combined with the five elements; earth, metal, fire, water and wood create the eight trigrams. Each trigram is made up of three lines, either solid or broken, Ch'ien being totally Yang with three unbroken lines, K'un being totally Yin with three broken lines and the rest making up the six other combinations possible. Each trigram represents a certain compass setting and has an associated element, animal, emblem, season and interpretation. Ch'ien for example is situated at the Northwest point of the compass and is associated with metal as its element, mare and ox as its associated animal, heaven as its emblem, late Autumn as its season and is interpreted with creativity, strength, roundness and vitality. Each of us has our own element, to calculate your element you must keep subtracting 10 from the last two numbers of your date of birth until you reach ten or less, each number pertains to an element, 9 for example is earth, 2 is water. In Chinese horoscopes elements are also assigned in relation with the exact hour, day and month of birth, it is the year of birth however which is the most important in a feng-shui context.

The Pa Kua

The Pa Kua is an octagonal shaped symbol which contains the four cardinal directions and the four inter-cardinal directions of the compass (east, south-east, south etc) plus the elements and the trigrams. The Pa Kua is the basic tool of Compass School Feng-shui. The key to the Pa Kua is the correlation between the compass directions, trigrams, life aspirations, elements and colours (see diagram). When the Pa Kua is placed over a plan of your home, you can divide it into eight different sectors, each of these correspond to an aspect of your life. The Pa Kua can then be used in each room of the house individually once the overall sectors have been recognised.

Each of us has a personal 'Kua number' or magic number which dictates our personal lucky and unlucky directions. Technically it is the natal star for your year of birth and part of Chinese Nine House Astrology. Calculating kua numbers differ for men and women and once you have worked out yours and your partner's kua numbers, directions become either auspicious or inauspicious. For example, a kua number of 9 has the southern orientation as the best direction, the southwest, the least fortunate and so on.

The Ten Heavenly Stems and Twelve Earthly Branches

Both the stems and branches are key elements in feng-shui, the Chinese calendar and cosmology and are used to measure time and direction. Each stem as well as bearing its Chinese name is allocated a number and these numbers are grouped into pairs, each pair relating to one of the five elements. 1, 2, 9 and 10 are associated with the Ch'ien and K'un trigrams which are not propitious because they are overwhelmingly Yang and Yin respectively with no balance. Stems 3, 4, 7 and 8 are associated with trigrams which combine both Yin and Yang and are therefore considered to be lucky.

The twelve earthly branches give specific information about time and place. The twelve main compass points are each allocated to one of the twelve earthly branches. They also represent the twelve two-hour divisions of the day and the twelve months of the year. A year, month and an hour can all therefore be designated by one of the twelve earthly branches, which can then in turn signify a direction of the compass for each of these times. The seasons fit naturally with the branches and indicate the best times of the year for initiating building or buying projects.

Using Feng-shui

Once you have calculated a kua number, and have mastered the trigrams and pa kua, you can begin to look at your home and determine which areas need some feng-shui work. Your whole house can be divided into eight sectors followed by each room marked out by the eight trigrams. Each trigram is associated with a particular aspect of your life, for example, career, children, wealth and so on and by checking the pa kua and trigrams you can establish which rooms (or corners of a room) correspond to which 'life aspiration'.

Obviously certain 'bad' feng-shui things in your home cannot be changed without undertaking major constructional changes but there are many feng-shui 'cures' however, such as mirrors to help move the ch'i around the house or octagonal mirrors painted with the trigrams surrounding the mirror to deflect 'secret arrows'. Wood chimes are also useful for circulating ch'i and can be strategically placed to break up corridors or other straight alignments which channel ch'i too quickly. Bamboo flutes are wind instruments (feng) and can be used to ease the flow of ch'i around obstructions like overhead beams. Colour also plays an important part in both feng-shui and in the interior decoration of your home. In feng-shui, it is important to balance yin and yang elements. Strong colours like red walls introduce yang into a room but they must be balanced with yin highlights such as plants and flowers. These combinations of the yang and yin encourage the ch'i to meander and congregate. The strongest feng-shui colours are red, green and gold and they are used in the painting of the pa kua and many other Chinese decorations.

Feng-Shui Tips

Living and Dining Rooms

The living and dining areas of your home are traditionally the social centres and should therefore be designed with unity in mind. More than in any other room of the house, these rooms should concentrate on the uninterrupted flow of ch'i. Furniture should be arranged in a circular, square or octagonal grouping and should not point toward a doorway. Round tables are good feng-shui because they promote the circulation of positive ch'i. Lots of light in a room promotes good energy and plants soften the yang and encourage positive ch'i to congregate and meander. Too many doorways can disperse positive ch'i and overhead beams should be counteracted with wooden flutes hung at angles.

Bedrooms

Paying attention to the direction in which we sleep is one of the most important aspects of the layout of the bedroom. The bed direction can affect all sorts of things including career, relationship and marriage fortunes. The head of your bed should point to one of your four best directions as determined by your kua number and should also be placed against a wall for support as this reinforces your sense of security. Headboards are suitable if a wall is unavailable. One thing which should be avoided is sleeping with your head facing the door of the room as this will weaken your ch'i accumulation. A bedroom should also only have one entrance so that the sleeper can absorb the accumulating ch'i rather than have it disperse rapidly out through a second doorway.

Kitchens

The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the house as it is associated with the health and nourishment of the family. It is important that kitchens are located in an appropriate position to avoid illness and loss of livelihood for the occupants. You should have a well-proportioned entrance door which allows the entry of ch'i. The various facilities in the kitchen are easily assigned to their elements, for example the cooker is obviously a fire item and the sink and fridge, both water. Ideally, the fire and water elements should not be opposite each other and the cooker should not face either the back or front doors otherwise valuable ch'i will be lost. The introduction of green into a kitchen, symbolizing wood, helps to support both the fire and water elements that make up the kitchen.

Bathrooms

Although the location of your bathroom is not particularly critical, the running water in the room affects the shui or water balance of the house. The location of your toilet however is important. They should be hidden from the door of the bathroom or aligned away form the door. Toilets act as a drain on ch'i accumulation and are a strong generator of excess Yin and sha ch'i (bad energy). All feng-shui masters will advise that both the seat and the lid of the toilet are closed at all times to stop the ch'i disappearing down it. A toilet should also not face towards the main entrance of the house. Flushing the toilet bowl is seen symbolically as flushing away accumulated water and therefore accumulated wealth.

Gardens

In the garden you generally have much greater freedom to change things than you do in your home. The essence again is to balance the yin and the yang in the garden so that ch'i is encouraged to flow in a lazy, meandering fashion and to accumulate. The presence of soft yin foliage can be countered with the yang of polished stones and boulders. Paths are best curved and meandering much like a stream and plants should cloak any harsh fences. Advanced feng-shui has much to say about the positioning of ponds and watercourses but all agree on the necessity of some kind of water feature. Garden furniture should be rounded to deflect bad ch'i.

The obvious choice for most of us is to employ the services of a feng-shui practioner to help us improve the ch'i within our homes but it is also interesting to learn yourself how feng-shui can benefit your life and the lives of those around you. It is important when learning to try one thing at a time and wait a while to judge the affects of the change you have made. It is also important not to advise others until you are a full feng-shui master and therefore qualified. One thing is certain however, for something to stay around for centuries, to be almost revered by large portions of the global population and to be recognised with more and more respect daily in the west, feng-shui is not to be laughed at.