Feng Shui Style
[Books]
By HOOI YOU CHING
STEPHEN Skinner, feng shui master and author. Now that wouldn’t be too surprising to see on an office door or a shopfront in, say, London. But it would raise quite a few eyebrows if the man was practising in, say, Johor Baru!
And that is exactly where Skinner is based and what do you know, this gweilo is doing quite well, thank you very much.
At first sight, Skinner looks more like a geography professor on vacation in his green floral shirt and black pants than a practitioner of an ancient Oriental art.
Funnily enough, Skinner was a geography lecturer at Sydney Technical College (now renamed a university) before devoting full-time to writing and giving talks on feng shui. Nowadays, he runs a private feng shui practice based in JB.
When met in Kuala Lumpur recently at the launch of his latest publication, a coffeetable book, Feng Shui Style: The Asian Art of Gracious Living, Skinner says he sees no contradiction in being a Westerner dabbling in an Eastern art form.
“My view of feng shui is that it is physical and it works. Feng shui is art and science, it’s not a religion. By realigning the flow of qi, or energy force, one can experience a change of fortune, be it in one’s health, wealth, love life or career.”
He adds that there’s nothing random about feng shui as it is subjected to certain principles and calculations.
“Feng shui is almost 2,000 years old. That it has endured for centuries and remains relevant to this day is really amazing. It is not about fortune telling because it doesn’t predict the outcome of specific events.
“People dismiss it as hocus pocus, saying maybe it’s just a coincidence. Then how do you explain a series of positive coincidences that keep occurring? That’s rather similar to the theory of cause and effect. For me, I practise feng shui with a scientific mind, that is if you make certain changes, then your qi will flow in a different way,” says Skinner, who comes from Sydney, Australia.
It was in Hong Kong that Skinner found his calling for feng shui. He had followed his friend, whom he shared a flat with in London, to Hong Kong when the latter got married. “I was invited to live with him and his wife.”
The friend started a legal business there as well but it
“He wasn’t getting a single client at his new office. After moving to a smaller, cheaper office, still no clients came. He was going to pack his bags and return to London when I jokingly suggested why not consult a feng shui master. He said, no way, feng shui is superstition. And this guy’s Chinese, by the way.”
Anyhow, his friend did seek a feng shui expert known as Master Wu from Kowloon. Ten days after changes were done to his office, he got his first major client. Six months later, this same friend got featured in the South China Morning Post. “Thanks to feng shui, he went from being anonymous to being famous,” recalls Skinner.
It was then that Skinner decided he wanted to become a feng shui practitioner and left teaching. In the beginning, it was difficult practising his trade because of social prejudice and negative Western attitudes. But after establishing a good reputation among peers and clients, his career in feng shui consultancy took off. Surprisingly, his clients are mostly Chinese.
“They are mostly Western-educated individuals who appreciate the fact that I will not put a religious spin to it. I tell my customers feng shui is not a cure all. It cannot cause you to win a lottery but it can cause you to have a better job offer.
“My cynical Western friends didn’t believe in feng shui because it was something they couldn’t see and touch. I used the analogy of the mobile phone to make it easier for them to grasp the idea. Nobody has seen radio waves, but nobody doubts their existence either. Qi energy is not visible to an untrained person but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just as acupuncture can improve the energy flows along the meridian points in the body, and just as martial arts training can toughen the body, feng shui too can improve the energy flows in the environment,” he points out.
One his Western clients was a medium-sized insurance firm in London.
“In feng shui, the entrance of a building is crucial because if it faces a wall or rubbish-strewn area, that’s bad feng shui. In this case, its main entrance opened directly to a graveyard. That meant too much yin energy, which was not beneficial to business.
“I persuaded them to close the old entrance and open up a new front door onto a curved road to bring in more yang energy. The renovation costs £100,000 (RM700,000) and they were very unhappy to do it. Once the changes were made, the firm went from a loss-making situation into being a company that for two consecutive years scored the highest percentage improvement in profits than any insurance company in London.” .
Skinner, who has been based in Johor Baru for over a year, says that most of his clients are in Singapore. Other than Westerners and English-speaking Chinese clients, he has a few Indian customers as well.
Other than Master Wu, Skinner also learned the art from several feng shui practitioners in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Along the way, he cultivated a voracious appetite for classical Chinese texts on feng shui. Skinner, who declined to give his age, learned to read Chinese in 1974. But he finds the old classical manuscripts very challenging.
“Even now, I can’t pretend I understand them all but clarity started to arrive after I had been puzzling over them for a couple of years. Some of the best classics are, fortunately, very concise.”
In 1976, he wrote Living Earth Manual of Feng Shui, which is touted as the first book on feng shui in English and is often credited for introducing the subject to the West. He is the author of more than 20 books translated into more than 16 different languages, including three books on feng shui – K.I.S.S. Guide to Feng Shui, Flying Star Feng Shui and the best-selling Feng Shui: the Traditional Oriental Way.
In 1997, he launched the first full colour feng shui magazine known as Feng Shui For Modern Living (which have since stopped circulation). The magazine, which was distributed in 41 countries with translated editions in German and Chinese, was reported to have sold, at its peak, 121,000 copies of its English edition per month. Two years later, he was nominated for Publisher of the Year at the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) awards.
In Feng Shui Style: The Asian Art of Gracious Living (Periplus), Skinner explores the compatibility of feng shui principles with good architectural and interior design, supported by photographs by Graham Price of homes and interiors in Asia and the West.
Skinner, who owns 18 lopan (Chinese geomancy compass) discs in his collection, admits that charlatans give the trade a bad reputation.
“If a feng shui master doesn’t use a lopan, he or she is an imposter. People think a weekend course can turn them into feng shui experts. It doesn’t work that way.”
Skinner should know. It took him more than 28 years to master the art. And he says he’s still learning his craft.
By HOOI YOU CHING
STEPHEN Skinner, feng shui master and author. Now that wouldn’t be too surprising to see on an office door or a shopfront in, say, London. But it would raise quite a few eyebrows if the man was practising in, say, Johor Baru!
And that is exactly where Skinner is based and what do you know, this gweilo is doing quite well, thank you very much.
At first sight, Skinner looks more like a geography professor on vacation in his green floral shirt and black pants than a practitioner of an ancient Oriental art.
Funnily enough, Skinner was a geography lecturer at Sydney Technical College (now renamed a university) before devoting full-time to writing and giving talks on feng shui. Nowadays, he runs a private feng shui practice based in JB.
When met in Kuala Lumpur recently at the launch of his latest publication, a coffeetable book, Feng Shui Style: The Asian Art of Gracious Living, Skinner says he sees no contradiction in being a Westerner dabbling in an Eastern art form.
“My view of feng shui is that it is physical and it works. Feng shui is art and science, it’s not a religion. By realigning the flow of qi, or energy force, one can experience a change of fortune, be it in one’s health, wealth, love life or career.”
He adds that there’s nothing random about feng shui as it is subjected to certain principles and calculations.
“Feng shui is almost 2,000 years old. That it has endured for centuries and remains relevant to this day is really amazing. It is not about fortune telling because it doesn’t predict the outcome of specific events.
“People dismiss it as hocus pocus, saying maybe it’s just a coincidence. Then how do you explain a series of positive coincidences that keep occurring? That’s rather similar to the theory of cause and effect. For me, I practise feng shui with a scientific mind, that is if you make certain changes, then your qi will flow in a different way,” says Skinner, who comes from Sydney, Australia.
It was in Hong Kong that Skinner found his calling for feng shui. He had followed his friend, whom he shared a flat with in London, to Hong Kong when the latter got married. “I was invited to live with him and his wife.”
The friend started a legal business there as well but it
“He wasn’t getting a single client at his new office. After moving to a smaller, cheaper office, still no clients came. He was going to pack his bags and return to London when I jokingly suggested why not consult a feng shui master. He said, no way, feng shui is superstition. And this guy’s Chinese, by the way.”
Anyhow, his friend did seek a feng shui expert known as Master Wu from Kowloon. Ten days after changes were done to his office, he got his first major client. Six months later, this same friend got featured in the South China Morning Post. “Thanks to feng shui, he went from being anonymous to being famous,” recalls Skinner.
It was then that Skinner decided he wanted to become a feng shui practitioner and left teaching. In the beginning, it was difficult practising his trade because of social prejudice and negative Western attitudes. But after establishing a good reputation among peers and clients, his career in feng shui consultancy took off. Surprisingly, his clients are mostly Chinese.
“They are mostly Western-educated individuals who appreciate the fact that I will not put a religious spin to it. I tell my customers feng shui is not a cure all. It cannot cause you to win a lottery but it can cause you to have a better job offer.
“My cynical Western friends didn’t believe in feng shui because it was something they couldn’t see and touch. I used the analogy of the mobile phone to make it easier for them to grasp the idea. Nobody has seen radio waves, but nobody doubts their existence either. Qi energy is not visible to an untrained person but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just as acupuncture can improve the energy flows along the meridian points in the body, and just as martial arts training can toughen the body, feng shui too can improve the energy flows in the environment,” he points out.
One his Western clients was a medium-sized insurance firm in London.
“In feng shui, the entrance of a building is crucial because if it faces a wall or rubbish-strewn area, that’s bad feng shui. In this case, its main entrance opened directly to a graveyard. That meant too much yin energy, which was not beneficial to business.
“I persuaded them to close the old entrance and open up a new front door onto a curved road to bring in more yang energy. The renovation costs £100,000 (RM700,000) and they were very unhappy to do it. Once the changes were made, the firm went from a loss-making situation into being a company that for two consecutive years scored the highest percentage improvement in profits than any insurance company in London.” .
Skinner, who has been based in Johor Baru for over a year, says that most of his clients are in Singapore. Other than Westerners and English-speaking Chinese clients, he has a few Indian customers as well.
Other than Master Wu, Skinner also learned the art from several feng shui practitioners in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Along the way, he cultivated a voracious appetite for classical Chinese texts on feng shui. Skinner, who declined to give his age, learned to read Chinese in 1974. But he finds the old classical manuscripts very challenging.
“Even now, I can’t pretend I understand them all but clarity started to arrive after I had been puzzling over them for a couple of years. Some of the best classics are, fortunately, very concise.”
In 1976, he wrote Living Earth Manual of Feng Shui, which is touted as the first book on feng shui in English and is often credited for introducing the subject to the West. He is the author of more than 20 books translated into more than 16 different languages, including three books on feng shui – K.I.S.S. Guide to Feng Shui, Flying Star Feng Shui and the best-selling Feng Shui: the Traditional Oriental Way.
In 1997, he launched the first full colour feng shui magazine known as Feng Shui For Modern Living (which have since stopped circulation). The magazine, which was distributed in 41 countries with translated editions in German and Chinese, was reported to have sold, at its peak, 121,000 copies of its English edition per month. Two years later, he was nominated for Publisher of the Year at the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) awards.
In Feng Shui Style: The Asian Art of Gracious Living (Periplus), Skinner explores the compatibility of feng shui principles with good architectural and interior design, supported by photographs by Graham Price of homes and interiors in Asia and the West.
Skinner, who owns 18 lopan (Chinese geomancy compass) discs in his collection, admits that charlatans give the trade a bad reputation.
“If a feng shui master doesn’t use a lopan, he or she is an imposter. People think a weekend course can turn them into feng shui experts. It doesn’t work that way.”
Skinner should know. It took him more than 28 years to master the art. And he says he’s still learning his craft.
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