# Feng Shui and the Toilet **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 27, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419 "2002-03-27T18:34:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/1 "2002-03-27T18:34:10Z")
OK I’m at my friend’s house, and his new roommate comes home. I’ve met her like once before. She says to me, apropos of nothing, “Are you familiar with Feng Shui?” I say yes, a little. She says, “OK, when you flush the toilet, close the lid so the energy doesn’t get flushed down.” I am speechless, then as now. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/2 "2002-03-27T18:43:27Z")
What’s good for the toilet is also, apparently, good for her mouth. Personally, I like feng shui as long as there’s lots of wasabi. ---
**Author:** ![Why\_A\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/3 "2002-03-27T18:45:24Z")
But what if you’re using a urinal, where lids are just part of some madman’s raving delusions? Dammit, we guys are always getting the short end of the Feng Shui stick. ---
**Author:** ![berdollos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@berdollos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berdollos)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/4 "2002-03-27T18:53:19Z")
can be useful when you are in a bad mood. You can just flush it down the toilet. Don’t you remember the lyrics, “I want to wash that girl right out of my hair.” What mopre proof do you want?? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/5 "2002-03-27T18:58:52Z")
When I was living in Hong Kong, I was told the following by a Cantonese friend: The Cantonese for money is “cheeng”. But the slang for this is “soi”, which is actually the word for water (actually the “shui” in Feng Shui, but that’s Mandarin). The Bond Centre (now the Lippo Tower), which had to be sold due to the insolvency of its Western owner, had the fountains at its foot turned off by its new Chinese owner because the water was flowing away from the building, thus extracting money from the corporation. When you flush the toilet, you’re actually dumping money. I then asked my friend whether he subscribed to this philosophy, and he said “no, it’s complete bullshit.” However, a great many people in China take it very seriously. I personally think it has a lot to do with aesthetics - good feng shui (the real stuff, not the new-age Westernised stuff) tends to look nice. ---
**Author:** ![Hemlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Hemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hemlock)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/6 "2002-03-28T02:11:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jjimm \* > \*\*…I personally think it has a lot to do with aesthetics - good feng shui (the real stuff, not the new-age Westernised stuff) tends to look nice. \*\* Not all of it. I knew someone here in HK who had various business problems, plus #2 daughter was still single, etc etc. So the FS guy came into the house and they ended up with clocks all over the place, doors painted red and #2 daughter’s bed in an inconvenient position. The escalators at the ground floor of the HSBC HQ are at a weird angle because of this garbage. And Hang Seng Bank had to build 2 parallel walkways across Des Voeux Road where one would have sufficed for the same reason. The origins of FS are common sense (have a house facing south near some trees and with running water nearby). Since then it’s turned into complete crap. The fact that people believe it shows just how stupid people can be - especially gullible Westerners. However, it is a good way of detecting undesirable employees - as described in my [diary](http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/diary-23mar02.html) recently. ---
**Author:** ![Dragon\_Phoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Dragon\_Phoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragon_Phoenix)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/7 "2002-03-28T05:53:19Z")
Hey, don’t beat it until you tried it! I read in a Feng Shui book that tortoises bring luck. So I bought a little tortoise statue, just for fun. Within an hour I met the girl who is now my wife! ---
**Author:** ![Hemlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Hemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hemlock)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/8 "2002-03-28T06:03:19Z")
**Dragon Phoenix** - ha ha! Cutest example of post-hoc reasoning I’ve come across today . 😉 What do you recommend for someone (me) who regards remaining single as lucky? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/9 "2002-03-28T14:32:04Z")
Bwahahahahaha, someone in HK making fun of mainlanders and Feng Shui? Bwahahahahahahaha. Go stand in front of the HSBC building, which used to be THE trophy building in HK and the headquarters of HSBC. There are two big old honking stone lions out front facing the waterfront. No no stop, I mean there _ **used** _ to be two lions out front facing the water. After IM Pei designed the new Bank of China building, those two lions were moved so that they face each other (and now parallel to the harbor). This is so one of the lions now “faces” the Bank of China building and counteracts the bad feng shui thrown off by all of the wierd angles. I have before and after pictures. Having lived in HK, Taiwan and China, IMHExperience, the Honkies take the feng shui the most seriously. YMMV. Personally, I take feng shui about as seriously as a chain letter. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/10 "2002-03-28T15:47:13Z")
Can anybody in HK confirm this Feng Sui story? I heard that a new power plant was built with 4 smokestacks , instead of the three stacks (as specified by the engineering design firm). The 4th stack was added because the geomancer said that three was an unlucky number! How can I (westerner/foreign devil) get into this feng sui racket?It sounds like it could be highly lucrative! ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/11 "2002-03-28T15:58:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\*Can anybody in HK confirm this Feng Sui story? I heard that a new power plant was built with 4 smokestacks , instead of the three stacks (as specified by the engineering design firm). The 4th stack was added because the geomancer said that three was an unlucky number! > How can I (westerner/foreign devil) get into this feng sui racket?It sounds like it could be highly lucrative! \*\* Change the location to London, UK; drop the Feng Sui reference; call it Battersea PowerStation and you have a true story - aesthetics rather than superstition ruled that day!! Gp ---
**Author:** ![Hemlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Hemlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hemlock)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/12 "2002-03-28T16:13:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\*Can anybody in HK confirm this Feng Sui story? I heard that a new power plant was built with 4 smokestacks , instead of the three stacks (as specified by the engineering design firm). The 4th stack was added because the geomancer said that three was an unlucky number! > How can I (westerner/foreign devil) get into this feng sui racket?It sounds like it could be highly lucrative! \*\* You’re thinking of the power station on Lamma Island. I recall hearing this story - but IIRC it had 5 stacks when only 4 were needed. 4 is an unlucky number - sounds like the word for “death”. And the stacks remind people of incense sticks burnt at the location of someone’s death. I don’t remember ever seeing 5 stacks there. As **China Guy** says, Feng Shui should be taken as seriously as chain letters. And I get the impression he is right about people in HK taking it way too seriously. Yes, it’s a lucrative con. The people who make most out of it are not the geomancers (though they do OK) but the villagers who demand huge compensation when government highway construction ruins the precious feng shui in their rural neighborhoods. Money overcomes everything here. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/13 "2002-03-28T17:07:20Z")
Feng Shui. Here’s the complete line of bullshit. > **[Spirit Web - Experience Your Soul](https://www.spiritweb.org)** > > SpiritWeb is your final destination to experience the different aspects of spiritual and mystical consciousness levels of existence. > [@](#): > > The energies that create and sustain human life are coordinated with the five elements. Before we are born, we exist as five elements. When your parents make love, they send out a similar frequency that attracts you and induces your five elements to come together. As this occurs, you come into existence. Right. Biology has nothing to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/14 "2002-03-29T01:34:18Z")
My mother said she found me under a cabbage leaf. I had an anglo friend with a farm not far from Vancouver, BC who had to take a HUGE loss when he sold it. Over the years, the area had become predominately Asian (sorry, I forget which variety) and the property had “bad Feng Shui” because of its shape and the number of its address. My friend waited for years for attitudes to change and the value to rise, but ultimately he gave up and unloaded it. Which reminds me of several stories in Seattle involving Asian homeowners petitioning the Post Office for address changes, because their house number contained an unlucky 7 or whatever. In all the stories I read, the homeowners got their way. Probably at huge expense to the rest of us. I have to go flush all this bad energy down the toilet now. ---
**Author:** ![berdollos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@berdollos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berdollos)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/15 "2002-03-29T15:24:24Z")
Matter consists of energtized atomes and molecules. It radiates energy. That is why clutter is so enervating. I am open to the possible validity of Feng Shui, but who know for sure how to prove or disprove it? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/16 "2002-03-29T19:42:48Z")
Just ranting here. The local Big Chain Bookstore has a _rack_, not a shelf, a _rack_ of Feng Shui books. Something like 500-1000 books. I can’t believe there are that many stupid people with moeny out there. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2002, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feng-shui-and-the-toilet/100419/17 "2002-03-29T20:49:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ftg \* > The local Big Chain Bookstore has a _rack_, not a shelf, a _rack_ of Feng Shui books. Something like 500-1000 books. > > I can’t believe there are that many stupid people with moeny out there. Over 100 million Americans believe in astrology. Work from there.