The Hong Kong Cemetary in Happy Valley. (ForsterFoto via Flickr)
An op-ed in today’s issue of the Standard discusses the grisly murders in Wan Chai that gripped Hong Kong’s attention, and the sad case of the three suicides that occurred within a three-hour period in Ho Man Tin.
“Scary, isn’t it? Same place same incidences. Coincidence?”
Apparently not, according to Kerby Kuek, a feng shui, inner alchemy and metaphysics expert writing for the Standard.
Murders and suicides are rare in the city, Kuek argues, so if they occur multiple times in the same location, it “can only be explained by metaphysical forces”.
Yes. The only explanation.
(According to the Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Hong Kong’s suicide rate is at about the world average.)
Kuek, after doing some “fact-checking” and research, enlightened by “historical data” and his own experience, concluded that most of the areas or housing estates that have been blighted with multiple homicides or suicides were “out of gua line”, a feng shui term that basically means their energies are off.
The feng shui master does concede that bad energy alone cannot cause such awful events, but suggests that “extra boosts”, when combined with the bad mojo, “create havoc”.
In one case (he fails to specify which one exactly), he blamed unfortunate incidents on the fact that the housing estate was built on a graveyard, of which the former inhabitants’ spirits were “waiting for the right time to strike back at humans”.
We’re all for hiring feng shui masters to align our furniture and buildings in whatever way they deem optimal, but we think Hong Kong society needs to look at other problems – say, access to mental healthcare – before we start pointing fingers at bad energy and spiteful spirits.
