Cecil Lee

Normally, 6 ancient coins are used to `exhaust' a bad Five Earth element or to destroy the Wood. I can quite understand the Five coloured beads as these usually represent the Five elements. As for a small bell and the Five Chinese coins (minus the tassel - which is considered `insignificant'), I cannot really comment on these other than if one considers the number 5. Here, I believe, it is more a decorative piece to symbolise the number 5 rather than to represent 5 " Metal ". As a general guideline, if one do not know what to do with it, then avoid hanging it. As the saying goes better safe than sorry. Warmest Regards, Ceci Lee

Hi, The Peony in Mandarin is called Mu Dan. It was called the Queen of Flowers. In the " Book of Odes ", amorous youths and maidens give each other this flower. In very ancient times the flower was called Shu Yao. The Peony flower comes in various colours. But the most popular colour is red. White peony flower signify the young. Young girls with qualities of wit and beauty. In a folk song, it is said that when the peony blooms, its perfume smell spreads over a vast area and this attracts butterflies (which symbolises a young man.) While the peony flower represents the girl). Overall, a peony in a picture represents the season Spring. If it is pictured together with the hibiscus it represents `bloom'. In other words, wealth and good reputaion. If a peony is shown with wild apple (Hai Tang), it implies that a person will enjoy wealth and credit. If a peony is shown with the peach it represents long life, wealth and reputation. The peony is also symbolic of maidenhood. Many poets under the Tang Dynasty sang praises to it. In ancient China, the poney is almost synonymous with a flower in general. In my opinion, I do not see any problem planting a peony tree even if one is married. Perhaps, can you elaborate where you have heard or read of it. Thanks Cecil

Hi, I believe this is more a modern `invention' and really `too significant' for true authentic Feng Shui practise. I believe, it is a commonsense approach to have the light behind you. Perhaps, if our eye sight get bad because of such advise, can we claim from the author who mentioned this? In my opinion, if some of the Past or Dead Feng Shui Masters got to hear of this, they may either have a good laugh about this or truly shake their head or `cry in despair' at how modern people practise " Feng Shui ". Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, More importantly, it is the sharp edge of a building that we should be more concerned with. If the mirrored building is parallel to the wall of your building, you should not be overly concerned. Even if you are `concerned', you can easily draw down your shade or blind. Under the Sha or poison arrow concept, if you do not see it, it no longer becomes a threat. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, Most of us understand that many in the West associate the horse shoe with good luck. In traditional Feng Shui, this relates more towards the `profile' of a land. For example, if you have the opportunity to see a Chinese burial site, you will see that each traditional gravesite has a " horse shoe " i.e. if you have a topview of a gravesite, it looks like a horse shoe. Why is this so? If you can visualise, the horse shoe looks like a protective backing or solid backing protecting the entire gravesite. Similiarly, under the Shapes and Form School - the Four symbolic animals, you will notice that many Chinese cities were in the past built on this premise. For example Canton etc.. Therefore, the horse shoe comes to be symbolised as = tortise or solid back. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, Perhaps you can elaborate further. This is because, currently I am unable to visualise the situation. One point to note is that the driveway should not be directly towards the main entrance door. The door should be e.g. on a side. Hope u can provide more details. Thanks. Cecil

Hi, I have elaborated this in my Applied Feng Shui made easy book. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, I like to share with you that Symbolism is again very important in Feng Shui. Here it is more important to buy the correct type of lamp then deciding how many to use. For example the best shapes of lightings are those with a profile that are pointed upwards: /\ / \ || One should buy lightings that point upwards rather than downwards. This is to signify `progress' or an upward trend e.g. symbolic of success. Let me share with that before the Bank of China building was built, the exterior design has a few " V " and later on the advice of a geomancy, the advise was to change it to " ^ " symbolic of an UP sign. Therefore, here, the shape e.g. ^ is more important than say how many lights you have. Ideally, for the number of lightings, it has to depend on the size of the room. If the room is only a few hundred square metres, having a lighting with 5 lamps looks pretty odd. Again, the more important point is to understand the Yin and Yang concept: What are we using the room for most of the time? To sleep or to `play'. If we are going to use it for sleep, we should try to make it more of a yin environment. Imagine having 5 lamps looks more like a `Christmas' tree environment. It creates more towards a Yang location. Do you want it in the first place. Therefore, what I am trying to do is to let everyone understand that we should get our fundamentals correct rather than look at only the surface. If we continue to get our fundamentals correct, we will seldom ever go wrong. I am always prepared to go all the way to `defend' my point of view by giving examples. I hope, that we can each ask ourselves fundamental questions under Feng Shui e.g. what would the affect on Yin and Yang. Is this location Yin and Yang and what is the effect on the Five elements etc.. It is more important to also understand the concept. The purpose of having lights on both sides of the main entrance door is to keep the location `bright'. But if you are not going to turn on the lights.. it will not help if you place two lights just for show. If your main entrance area is already lighted up or in our real world, you have an alarm sensor there, then it is ok not to have it. One " commonsense " approach of keeping not only the main entrance but the surronding area of a landed property is to deter thieves ..not so much of Feng Shui. Hope the above helps. Cecil

Hi, Symbolism in Feng Shui is very important. Even if it is not a real object, symbolism is a powerful `tool'. For example, when we mention `blue roof'. If one is not Feng Shui aware some may ask this question what has blue got to do with water? Here, if we are Feng Shui " aware " we will link Water = Blue. Equally, if we have a wooden object shaped like a pyramid. Do we consider it wood = Wood element or because it is pyramid shaped it represents Fire element? In most cases symbolic takes precedence over the material. For the above example, the pyramid shaped object be it made of metal, glass etc.. should be considered a Fire element. Coming to the artificial fish tank, it should still be considered = Water element. I do not want to " confuse " anyone further at this point as there are usually two or more elements in a water tank: 1. the " water " in the tank represents Water element. 2. What about the fish? - Many fishes e.g. carp, koi and gold fish are considered to be under the Metal element. Here, if you have a poison arrow aimed at a window, a fish tank with water and metal can be used to `counter act' e.g. the poision arrow. - Colour also is another consideration i.e. black gold fish represents (Black = Water) and is suppose to increase the strength of Water. If you are starting to be confused by now, I can quite understand. In life, we should not be ruled or be dictated by " taboos ". If you look closely, Feng Shui is really not about taboos etc.. FS is about enhancing beneifical qi or neutralising poison arrows especially in relation to the immediate exterior of the house and the interior Qi. Here, we should continue to `enjoy' life and let us not worry about `mundane' or `little' things such as where to place these objects. Usually go with your heart. It is not like you are going to place 3 or 4 of the same objects all over the house. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, It is very easy to get confused as to what is sha or pointed arrows that are `aimed' at a house. The best way to look at `pointed arrows' is to ask the following questions? 1. Is the pointed arrow aimed at my main door? 2. Is it aimed at any of my windows? 3. One last question is: Is my main door `hidden' from the gate and not directly facing a gate or path? In general, if your answers to the above question is No, then, there is little to worry about in terms of `poision arrows' aimed towards the house. As you can see, the main entrance door and the windows need to be `protected' from poison arrows. What about metal or any flag poles? Symbolically, any flag pole or tall metal or wood structure represents a thin tall object and if you look at it can act like a `knife' slicing thru the home. Here, the question is: Is the thin tall object slicing thru any part of my main entrance door or windows i.e. perpendicular or tangent to it. If your answer is No, then it does not affect your home. Hong Kong FS Masters like to use a fish tank. For example, if the flag pole or a lamp post is outside the window i.e. when you look out of the window of your home and see a lamp post, the fish tank is said to counter act this sha. For the main entrance door, some resort to: 1. tilting the main door to one of the good auspicious locations if this is possible. I must caution here to you need an expert Feng Shui Practioner to help u do it. 2. Use a semi-circular carpet radiating outwards outside the entrance door. Better still if you have something like a `sun' and its rays, let this half shaped `sun rays' radiate outwards. 3. If there are steps leading up to the main entrance, you can use semi-circular steps radiating outwards. The above concepts 2 and 3 is similiar to the "Ming Tang" or a semi-cicular pool found in some buildings to radiate outwards to `protect' the front of the house. 4. Other `cures' include using the First Heaven Sequence Mirror Ba Gua for example. 5. More offensive `weapons' include: - Placing a cannon on a shelf pointing out of a window. For example, some purchase a replica of a ships cannon. These can be found in toy stores etc... 6. Others use two statutes of lion or fu fu dogs outside (on each side of their main entrance doors). Usually, this is common e.g. in eating establishments or if you been to a Hong Kong Shanghai Bank (HSBC) they usually have two huge lion statutes on each side of their main entrance buildings. Here, you need advise of a FS practioner to place these things. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, Each year, the 7th month under the Lunar Calendar is called the 7th month: 1. This is also called the Hungry Ghost. 2. For this year, it is around 11 August and 9 September. If you have a Calendar with the Lunar dates, you can check out when the 7th month starts and ends. 3. To the Chinese, this is a very inauspcious period especially for: a. Any outdoor activities and includes no renovations. 4. What is the 7th month? In brief, this is based on Chinese `Superstition' or to be more exact, a Chinese Belief. It signifies that ghosts are let out to the world during this period they are allowed to roam around. 5. Many `celebrate' the occasion by giving offerings e.g. buying pre-packaged sweet offerings, light josticks, fruits and food by placing them at the grass verge or if they are living in flats, there are utility bins for them to burn offering papers. During this period, if you walk around Housing Board Flats in Singapore, you may find burnt paper flying around the floor of the common areas the next day. 6. Another reason is because, especially for the aged, in my opinion, I do notice quite a lot of wakes / funeral `ceremonies' during this period. Many pray that they do not fall `prey' to these ghosts and by offering prayers, they can applease these ghosts and thus `escape' e.g. unnatural deaths etc.. 7. During this period, many from the same location set up tents and there is a performance and bidding of certain goods. This is in the hope of getting `good luck.' 8. Personally, I do not practise the above. The above is a flavour of part of the culture I have seen in my country which is predominantly of Chinese migration. Warmest Regards, Cecil

A pyramid roof simply implies that the building takes on the element of Fire. A pyramid roof shows a pointed arrow upwards e.g. /\ / \ || Here symbolism is important. What this means is that it is pointed upwards e.g. progress. compare this with " V " downwards pointed which means down or a fall or thumble. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, Although there is a significance attached to the interpretation of each Trigram (hexagram) for each direction. This is about it. This is commonly known as the Eight Associations or Aspirations or Life Aspirations. One must remember that even the basic Compass School Eight house theory is personalised to a person i.e. based on his/her year of birth. Each one of us thus have a specific kua number. If you look at the Eight Aspirations Concept, it is applied to everyone and this really makes no sense. I have often quoted that if each of us e.g. 10 of us in an office places a picture frame or rose at the SW, and all of us are trying to get close to a specific colleague. Is it ever possible for the 10 of us to win the girl in the end? She has a choice and even then, she may not even choose any of us. Do you see the rationale why such a general theory is `quite' wishful thinking? Book authors want to promote such theories because it is easy to write such materials. With a little imagination, we can each of us write one chapter e.g. you write a chapter on Career sector (north), another write on Romance (SW) etc... We can then add all the chapters and come up with a " winner ". Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, 1. It is important to remember not to change the Ba Gua during the Hungry Ghost Festival. Off hand, I did not check the calendar but I think for this period i.e. 11 August to 9 September, this is the 7th month or Hungry Ghost Festival. Avoid changing the Ba Gua during this period. 2. To dispose of the faded Ba Gua, one effective way is to wrap it up in old news papers. You should tie it up with a string or rafia or even using scotch tape. This will do. Next, bring it out to the dustbin and throw it away. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Dear Randy, Please see below: It is fundamentally more important to follow the Shapes and Form School e.g. the Four Symbolic Animals Concept i.e. have a solid support of the wall. In addition, it is nice to sleep with the head facing a good direction but this is secondary after sleeping in a good auspicious location. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Dear Caroline, Thanks for your brief information. 1. It would be best not to rely on "fixed" theories e.g. the Eight Aspirations or Associations. The reason is that it is too general to be applied to anyone or their home. Unlike the Eight House Theory, the Eight Aspirations does not even consider one's Year of birth or personalised it to a person or their home. 2. In your case, you may want to consider any of the following theories: a. Shapes and Form in relation to the exterior of your home and the interior. For the exterior, make sure that there are no sharp corners of neighouring houses pointed towards the main entrance or the windows etc.. For the interior, make sure that the working table is flushed against one side of the wall to lend it support. Where possible, there should be a back wall behind the table. The table should not immediately face the room door etc... 3. You should also consider using the Eight House Theory. For example, it is best to have the location with good intangible forces for the person. 4. As an added bonus, you could sit facing one of your good directions at work. 5. If you want to go deeper into more advanced Feng Shui, you may want to consider: a. Using Pillars of Destiny. For example here you can design a company logo to suit you. In addition, if for eg. you are a weak fire person, you can try to add fire element or wood element etc... b. You can also use the Flying Star to analyse the room i.e. auspicious or inauspicious and in some situations if there is a mountain star, it can be activated. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, In a " cold " country, it is acceptable to have a chimney. It is a good feature to have in such houses especially in the winter as it provides warm to the household. You can say that it is the near equivalent of the stove if we want to see it that way. A stove is a very important part of the home. However, we may perhaps look at the positioning of the chimney. This is considered a more important factor. I remembered that a few persons also written in much earlier (in the previous forum) that in their country, they have water pipes running along the floor of the house. If I am not mistaken it is Sweden. - Hope my memory is correct here). Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, Colours are secondary to Feng Shui. For example, it is best to get the `basics' correct e.g. to have a good house situated on a good site etc... You can consider colours `nice to have' but not of primary importance. More importantly, choose a colour of the car that you like. I have read that there were some studies conducted (forgot the source) but one study mentioned that bright red cars are prone to accident. One reason is because the colour of the car blend with the brake lights and was not noticeable. This is before many new cars and countries require a third brake light especially at the back glass window or bonnet. So, in the past, it would be " foolish" if one did not really intend to buy a red car but because of FS, go out to buy one and met with an accident (worse still meet with a fatal accident). Here, it is best not even to know about Feng Shui. Overall, Feng Shui must not be practised or `run' our lifes or we become the `slave' of it. Warmest Regards, Cecil Lee

Hi, This is really not Feng Shui but based on " superstitious beliefs ". So far, in my personal opinion, I have on occassions also have dried flowers at home and to me, really do not pose any problems. Your second point of giving red flowers is based (I believe) on the `culture' that giving e.g. red roses represents a romantic senario. But I guess, it can equally symbolise `love' of the person or boss. It should be seen as a `gesture' and not so of bad luck. As a Chinese, we do not give a Clock e.g. during house warming or buy shoes for the person. This is considered bad luck. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, The practice of placing the fish tank at window is an acceptable practise. However, you must leave a reasonable gap e.g. 6 inches from the wall. The above practise is very common when there is a street lamp outside the window *slicing* thru the window. As the street lamp to some practioners represent a Fire element, the water is used to cool it down or neutralise it. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi, This " School " of Feng Shui believes that 5 hanging lights represents each of the Five Elements and can be placed a a location to represent each of the Five elements. It can be all of the same colour. Some went to extent of using five different coloured bulbs. Symbolically, in the day time one need not light up the bulbs. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Dear Liz, Here are a few points to note:- 1. If you have not read this short article, please click here: URL http://www.geomancy.net/fs/under.htm 2. The stream should not seem to be slicing into the house like a sickle or a blade. 3. Where possible the bed should be furthest away from the underground stream as the vapours according to Feng Shui is not ideal. Warmest Regards, Cecil Lee

Hi, Sorry for the delay in reply. Besides other activities, Robert and myself were busy configuring each of our new notebook to cater for the increased mails. The purpose of calling this entire site - Center for Feng Shui Research is that: 1. We are not restricted by practising only one School of Feng Shui or owe allegiance to only one " Master ". Overall, as you can see, it is good to learn Feng Shui from many Masters. Personally, I now have at least more than 400 books on Feng Shui both Chinese: from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and many others. 2. Like the Kung Fu movies we see, you will notice that the actors usually start off getting `bullied' and as a result they learn more and more skills from different Masters. The truth is the same for Feng Shui. 3. Great Feng Shui Masters in the past did not learn Feng Shui from only one Master but from books. They read widely, adopt what is good and discard the "bad ". 4. Look around the internet. If you read the biography of many of the people who called themselves a Master, you will find that most of them learn from books. If I am not mistaken, many Traditional Feng Shui Masters who are quite prominent on the internet such as: Master Joseph Yu, Master Sang `picked' up Feng Shui. Jokingly, I remembered reading a heated exchange on the internet between John Mansoulf and Master Yu. John questioned him "Who died and when you become the Master ". Like the problem with the communication channel where there is `noise' imagine, if one Master passes his skills to the next. The end result is a distorted or much reduced Feng Shui knowledge. This is different from reading as the knowlege can be imparted through centuries without much distortion. 5. In order to make a qualified comment, one must master all Schools of Feng Shui. 6. One must also try to learn or at least understand all the various techniques and variants of Feng Shui so that you can make an informed judgement. 7. Always have an open mind and be able not only to learn `blindly' but able to apply, interpret and combine various theories. For example, the first ever `spam' message in this forum by Jerry, who mentioned that he had learnt Pillars before and said that one can `never' do Pillars with only "3 Pillars ". Here, we must understand that in real life, many do not know their time of birth. Personally, I have been fasinated and enjoyed reading and learning Feng Shui from various sources as early as 1979. I recalled vivid memories of how my family members placed mirrors over the balcony doors etc... Warmest Regards, Cecil

Dear Joe, Thanks for sharing your personal information about plants. So far this year, there was one user here who did the Pillars and House Chart. Unfortunately, the House Chart is not good. In addition, the staircase is in the middle, the swimming pool is at the back. When you open the front entrance door, it faces the door of the bedroom. Toilets are also located wrongly. I really had no choice (after thinking very hard) but in the end had to advise user to place a single potted plant in the bedroom. The user has got too much water in many of her Pillars. Therefore, the plant would help to exhaust her water element. Warmest Regards, Cecil

Hi Felicia, Many Traditional Feng Shui Masters use the Pillars of Destiny to advise on the type of Company Logo to be used: 1. For a company for example, they look at the type of business. In my country, one local bank has a ancient coin in the middle of their logo and a circular purple background. The coin symbolises the Metal Element and Banking is considered a metal element. Here, what is done is to use Purple = Fire element to `destroy' the coin in the centre. The end result is to produce Wealth. 2. Many also take advantage of their personal element to create Logos for their proprietorship. For example, a weak Wood person actually used a wavy logo in green i.e. Wavy pattern = Water element and Green = Wood. Here, he is using water to nurish/strength wood and at the same time use Wood to strength his wood element. The above is how logos are designed using Pillars of Destiny knowlege e.g. weak Fire, strong Fire etc... I have a list of occupations in relation to the element in my Applied Feng Shui Made Easy book. For the Fire element, for example, the occupation includes : Sales and Marketing. So for your case, you can look at what your element is and try to enhance it. Warmest Regards, Cecil