Feng Shui at Work
There's a battle going on in Central, a battle between good and evil forces. Feng shui (pronounced fung shoy in Cantonese, foong shway in Mandarin, and literally translated as "wind" and "water") is the traditional Chinese art that determines the placement of objects to enhance the natural yin/yang balance. The principles governing positioning are highly complex. The most popular school of thought in Hong Kong emphasizes general geographic orientation, such as the relationship to nearby mountains or bodies of water. Another school of thought focuses on the symbolic importance of shapes in the surrounding environment, with triangles (such as those on the headquarters of the Bank of China) giving off particularly bad feng shui. In general, the principles of both schools relate to the flow of energies in nature. Some are considered beneficial (thus an entrance will be positioned to allow them to enter) and others are considered to be negative (in which case objects such as metal bars can be introduced to deflect them). The ideal orientation of a building, for example, is facing out to sea with a mountain behind -- which also happens to afford the best view and a cooling breeze. Even in modern Central, where feng shui is regarded as something akin to superstition, most developers figure it's better to be safe than sorry, so it's the rare skyscraper that's built without consulting a feng shui expert. Indeed, rumor has it that when the HSBC headquarters were built in the mid-1980s (at a cost of nearly US$1 billion) the escalators were reset from their original straight position so that they would be at an angle to the entrance of the building. Because evil spirits can only travel in a straight line, this realignment was thought to prevent waterborne spirits from flowing in off Victoria Harbor. The escalators are also believed to resemble two whiskers of a powerful dragon, sucking money into the bank.
The Bank of China Tower -- designed by Chinese-American I. M. Pei -- with its many triangular angles, however, does not have such good feng shui. A popular notion is that the building, which thins at the top, resembles a screwdriver that is drilling the wealth out of Hong Kong. Another is that buildings facing the sharp edges of the building will encounter negative feng shui and resulting problems. The Lippo Centre, which faces one of the triangles, was formerly the Bond Centre, owned by disgraced Australian businessman Allen Bond who was forced to sell the building after experiencing financial troubles. Government House, originally considered to be one of the best feng shui locations in Hong Kong, with clear, uninterrupted views of the mountains and sea. However, one of the angles of the Bank of China Tower bisects the Government House and caused, among other things, a nasty fall by Margaret Thatcher. The building is considered so unlucky that it now sits empty most of the year.
If you look up at the HSBC building, you'll notice two metal rods on top that look like a window-washing apparatus. Look more closely and you'll see that the rods are pointed at the Bank of China, a classic feng shui technique to protect the building from the negative energy of the dreaded triangles by deflecting the energy back to its source.