Notes » March 2008

Feng Shui Tourism

When cities need to clean up problem districts, they begin with urban renewal, revitalization or gentrification, policies with varying degrees of success and failure.

In Hong Kong, legislators apply feng shui. The latest proposal for Tin Shui Wai, a New Territories town "plagued by unemployment, poverty and family violence", is a nine-storey man cheung tower believed to "boost children's studies, employees' promotion prospects and competition in business". Designed to resemble a writing brush, the tower would be accompanied by a pond in the shape of an ink stone. The idea is not only to attract good fortune, but tourists.

I hate to say it, but that's not going to happen, because the Hong Kong Tourism Board has failed miserably in getting visitors to stay longer than three days. People skip through the Big Lychee like a flat rock across the water. Some make it as far as the Big Buddha, Tai O and perhaps an outlying island, but those are the adventurous ones: most folks rarely stray beyond Nathan Road and the Peak. If tourists understood that Hong Kong has plenty of areas worth exploring, they'd make it a destination instead of a waypoint. Even mainlanders come here mostly to shop.

If politicians believe in feng shui so much, they ought to administer it to the entire tourism industry.

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