In the last issue, I shared how you could use Feng Shui to ‘enhance’ your house. This issue, I would like to talk about how the ancient art could be used to enhance your commercial properties.
However, before I go into detail, I would like to highlight that it is crucial you first ensure that the Feng Shui of the property is good or at least acceptable. This is because if the Feng Shui of the place is bad, the only thing that could be done is to suppress the bad Feng Shui rather than enhance it.
For example, if your home is next to a rubbish dump, you could end up spending a lot of time trying to get rid of the stench rather than beautify your house. The same applies in the practice of Feng Shui.
As a result, I would suggest that if you are planning to start a business or move into a new office; please ensure that the place is good. Otherwise, you could end up spending a lot of time, effort and money trying to overcome the bad Feng Shui.
Can you imagine starting a business where the Wealth Spot is located in the toilet? In such a circumstance, no matter how hard you work, you will lose money.
Indeed, whether you are starting a restaurant or opening a retail shop, the Feng Shui principles are the same.
The most important thing that you should be concerned about is the Main Door. In Flying Star Feng Shui, all Period Eight properties will have the auspicious Star Arrangement in the Middle Axis, which will affect it to enjoy good luck. It would be good if you could have your Main Door in the centre section of the front.
If the Wealth Spot of the shop or the good Water Star happen to be located in the Facing Palace, opening the Main Door in the middle will activate good wealth luck. This means that each time a customer enters your premise he will activate the wealth luck and bring you business. Isn’t that what every businessperson wants?
As I have mentioned before, the Main Door is very important in Feng Shui practice. You need to ensure that it is not afflicted. You need to determine if there is a poison arrow that is hitting the Main Door. This is especially crucial if the poison arrow is close to the Main Door.
Two years ago, I was engaged to carry out Feng Shui consultation for a restaurant in Hainan Island, China. The business for the restaurant was very bad because there is a huge column in the restaurant just four feet from the Main Door. This is a square column with a sharp edge is pointing to the main door. In effect, every customer who entered the restaurant felt like there was an arrow piercing them and this definitely affecting the restaurant’s business.
The best remedy for this problem is to ensure there is no sharp edge pointing towards the Main Door. Ever since the owners of the restaurant rectified the problem, their business has improved tremendously.
There are other remedy methods such as using a potted plant to block a sharp edge. You could also use a crystal ball to block the poison arrow. Other good methods are to place a bright light or fountain between the door and the poison arrow.
Like residential properties, you should not be able to see the Back Door from the Main Door. This is like the good Qi entering one way and going out the other. If it is not possible for you to relocate your Back Door; place a screen or some furniture between the doors so the Qi could move around the premises before going out. This is especially important for retail outlets as you do not want a customer walking in and immediately walking out without so much as glancing at your merchandise.
The entrance should also be bright and spacious. This is to give the impression that the shop is welcoming and attracting customers. If the Main Door is filled with merchandise that obstructs the way and the light is dim, customers will find difficulty making their way in or would not try to enter.
The other most important item is the cashier’s counter. In Flying Star Feng Shui, it is extremely important to place the counter in the Wealth Spot. This is to ensure that the business makes more money. You could also place a water feature at the counter to activate wealth luck. Each time you open and close the register, you would be enhancing your wealth luck.
Remember that in the Auspicious Water Star sector, you would need to make as much noise as possible, as movement and noise activate this particular Feng Shui. On the other hand, movement and noise in the Bad Water Star sector could activate loss of wealth.
For businesses where a feature is not possible, you could place other objects to create movement and noise, such as a neon light, a clock or a hi-fi set to activate your wealth luck.
To attract business, you could place a bright light or glitter lamps in the south corner of your business. You could also hang a painting of a hundred birds in the south to enhance business.
You would also need to counter bad mouthing, gossip and misunderstandings between you and your customers by placing a red-coloured decorative at the sector in line with the Annual Quarrelsome Star. For 2008, this is in the west while it will be north-east in 2009.
With regards to Feng Shui for the office, it is slightly different from a retail shop or restaurant’s, more so because the office is a place where staff and bosses work while a retail shop is mostly for customers.
An important aspect is the layout of the office – especially the boss’ and financial controller’s rooms. A director or the boss is the most important person in a company. If a director’s room is located in a sector that has Bad Feng Shui, he or she will be affected by the bad Qi and cause the company to suffer. The same applies to the financial controller, as he or she is the person who controls the company’s finances.
The best is to use Flying Star Feng Shui to locate the Wealth Spot as well as the good sectors of the office. Only then should you start designing the layout of the office by placing the director or boss’ room in an auspicious sector – possibly the Wealth Spot of the office. This is followed by the financial controller’s room, which should also be located in a Wealth Spot.
If it is a big company with many employees, then the Human Resource department is important too. The person who heads this department should be seated in a sector with the auspicious Mountain Star.
For the office, the Main Door and reception is basically restricted to the entrance, thus we may not have flexibility to choose the location. You would need to ensure that the entrance and reception is bright and spacious.
If possible, try to locate the store, filing, photocopy and pantry areas in the Bad Sector of the office – places where staff would not usually spend too much time in.
Once you have located the rooms for important personnel, the next thing to do is to locate the position of desks by using Eight Mansion Feng Shui to determine their auspicious direction.
For the top management, there should be a wall behind where they sit. The wall would act as a support for them. You would need to ensure that there is no toilet behind the wall. If there is toilet behind the wall, try to use another wall as support. If this is the only place that you could place your table, you could build a false wall in front of the wall to show that you do not share the same wall with the toilet.
You should not sit directly facing a door. This is because the Qi coming in through the door will directly hit you. This is also the same for the reception counter. Many companies arrange the reception counter directly in front of the Main Door – the poison arrow will hit the receptionist and she may not last long in the company.
An office’s layout is the most important aspect of Feng Shui practice. I have used this to design the layout the offices of many companies, including public-listed ones and they have all worked out well.
As most staff will be working in their work space for long hours, you should ensure that there are no lights, beams and sprinklers directly above where they sit. These items act as poison arrows that would continuously hit them.
The office should be bright and the colour scheme should enhance the Feng Shui arrangement. Passageways should be created so the movement of staff is smooth and unobstructed.
If there are columns that act like poison arrows, you can place plants to block the sharp edges. Plants also soften the atmosphere of the office.
Apart from using red/gold decorations to counter the Annual Quarrelsome Star, you can also place a rooster to counter office gossip. For those who want to enhance their Mentor Luck, they can place a Dragon Tortoise or lots of metal or gold coloured decorations in the north-west corner of their room or table. You can place a glitter lamp or a bright light in the south corner of the office to enhance Fame and Recognition Luck.
North is the place for career. You can place a tortoise in the north corner of your room or table to enhance your career luck.
This Lunar New Year is coming to an end. The next Lunar New Year begins on 26th Jan 2009. It is important for us to update the Feng Shui of our property annually so our lives would be smoother the whole year. We can also able to predict what the luck of the coming year could be so we are well prepared and able to overcome challenges.
In the next issue, I will share the Luck of 2009. I will also use the Flying Star Feng Shui to show you the Annual Stars for 2009, the luck of each direction and how to use the information to help you to have an auspicious year ahead.
