The Feng Shui Detective Read online

  PRAISE FOR NURY VITTACHI

  AND THE FENG SHUI DETECTIVE BOOKS

  ‘Unsurpassable mixture of humor, wisdom and whodunnit.’

  The Crime Forum, Germany

  ‘A very funny book. Dangerously so at times.’

  That’s Beijing

  ‘Wacky and hilarious whodunit—you just have to dig in

  and hold on for the wild ride.’

  Asian Review of Books

  ‘An international bestseller whose unlikely sleuths appear

  to be heading for cult status.’

  Herald Sun, Melbourne

  ‘Totally engrossing and very, very funny.’

  Radio 3AK, Melbourne

  ‘If Hollywood wakes up . . .’

  The Australian

  ‘One of the most droll, attractive and unusual

  of modern amateur detectives.’

  The Bulletin

  ‘Should bear a large red label warning against its being read

  while consuming beverages, lest unwary readers wind up

  spitting tea through their nose as I did.’

  That’s Beijing

  ‘The story is populated by a stream of eccentric characters and amusing examples of Singapore’s polyglot, multiethnic culture . . .

  a tasty smorgasbord of modern Asian life.’

  Japan Times

  ‘Does for the flow of ch’i what Sherlock Holmes

  did for cocaine.’

  South China Morning Post

  ‘The man who made Lee Kuan Yew laugh.’

  The New Paper, Singapore

  First published in 2000

  This Australian edition published in 2008

  Copyright © Nury Vittachi 2000

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Vittachi, Nury, 1958-

  The feng shui detective.

  ISBN 978 1 74175 537 4 (pbk.)

  823.92

  Text design: Design by Committee

  Set in 11/13.5 pt Adobe Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Feng Shui Master

  Lo Hung Lap

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The feng shui techniques in this book are mostly from the Flying Star School and the Form School of East Asia.

  The vaastu principles are from the northern Indian school.

  The ancient Chinese philosophy, stories and quotes from Confucius and other sages are largely genuine and come from texts up to 2500 years old. The extracts from ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’ are by C F Wong, with spelling and grammar corrections by J McQuinnie.

  Contents

  Scarlet in a study

  Printing errors

  A kitchen god’s life

  The lion’s share

  Mysterious properties

  Ghost in the machine

  Spice of life

  The taxi driver

  An imperfect enclosure

  Scarlet in a study

  Recently, one thousand years ago, a sage lived on the Plain of Jars. His name was Lu Hsueh-an. He said, ‘The trappings of a man’s life are not his life. Yet the trappings of a man’s life are his life.’

  Is this a contradiction? Yes but also no. Please consider this image.

  It is a hot day. You sit under a very small tree. This is good. There is shade. You can see all around you. Nowhere can hide an interloper.

  But there is shade for one person only. You have no visitors. You become lonely.

  You move to a bigger tree. It has room for two-three guests to share the shade.

  This is very nice. But the trunk is a little bit wide. There is a space behind you. You cannot see who is there.

  Some of us we grow older. We move to much bigger trees.

  You find a banyan tree so big that a whole village can sit in the shade. You have a very big world now. But there is danger. Behind you there is an unknown space as big as the space in front of you.

  Some people never get to a large banyan tree. Others move from small to big worlds. But something in their lives shocks them. They go back to very small worlds.

  Blade of Grass, when you meet someone you must silently ask them a question. How big is your world? This is one of the most important things you can know about a person.

  There are times when you meet someone and you realise that your own world is not big enough to fit them. Then you have a decision. Do you say there is no room? Or do you move to a bigger tree?

  Again Lu Hsueh-an said: ‘Do not ask the Immortals how big the world is. You make the world.’

  From ‘Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom’

  by C F Wong, part 73.

  C F Wong shut his inky journal and put it and his pen into the drawer. Then he flexed his fingers and stared out of the window. Although he affected the role of the wise old sage when he wrote, there was often a moment when he found himself helplessly transformed into the admonished pupil.

  He felt his own world was big, but it was his office that was small. It was the second of these factors that he used to justify his immediate hostility to a request from a person who was above him, in the temporal, corporate sense.

  Wong’s secretary and office administrator, Winnie Lim, had delivered the bad news in her broad Singapore-Hokkien accent. ‘One of Mr Pun’s contack, he wan’ a favour. M.C. Queeny or something. He wan’ you to fine a job for his son, you know already, is it?’

  ‘M.C. Queeny? I have never heard of him.’

  ‘M. C. Q. U. I. N. N. I. E. The boy’s name is Joe. His daddy is very good client of the company. Friend of Mr Pun. Mr Pun’s secretary, she phone me to tell me. You must give the boy a job for his school holiday, okay or not?’

  He sighed. Incursions into his private space always caused discomfort. He knew it was extremely common in this city, as probably in most modern places, for persons in power to find jobs for each other’s sons. The phrase, he thought, was ‘Old Boys’ Network’, or was it ‘Young Boys’ Network’? He must look it up in his dictionary of English idioms. But his office was just two rooms, and his organization was small, consisting of himself, Winnie and occasionally an underemployed Chinese philosophy graduate who did part-time research. He had no budget, no spare desk and no inclination to help.

  After a lengthy—for her—pause of three seconds, Winnie added her next bit of news: ‘Mr Pun tol’ me to tell you that he would be extremely pleased if you help. That’s what he said. Extremely pleased.’

  This phrase caused a momentary flicker in Wong’s eyes. ‘Ah. I see.’

  There was silence in the room as the brain activity of its two occupants switched to the left cerebrum, financial department.

  ‘How much you think?’

  The geomancer pulled thoughtfully at the few strag
gly hairs on his chin. ‘When he says he is “happy”, it means a little bonus is in the oven. If he is “extremely pleased”, it might mean a pay rise is in the oven.’

  ‘In the oven?’

  ‘English colloquial usage. I heard it from Dilip. It means will soon happen.’

  ‘There is already a pay rise, but not for you-lah, for the office. Retainer is going to be raise’ to cover the boy’s wages.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When he comes.’

  ‘No. When is he coming?’

  ‘Nex’ week. Monday.’

  ‘Oh. We can just give him some filing to do. Keep the child busy. Out of the street. That’s all he wants, really. Mo baan faat. What to do?’

  The problem soon started to recede in Wong’s mind. He slowly let out his breath ch’i-gong style, and his fears were expelled with it. There was something about today that was preventing him getting worked up about anything. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it might be. He just seemed to be in the grip of a general feeling of wellbeing.

  This positive feeling was more likely to come from inside than out, he knew. The offices of C F Wong & Associates were on the second floor of Wai-Wai Mansions, an old Chinese shophouse in a less fashionable quarter of Telok Ayer Street. The small road outside was becoming a busy thoroughfare, and the floor regularly shook as heavy vehicles rumbled past. This morning, traffic had been bad. Slow movement meant there was less rattling of the windows, but more horn-thumping by impatient commuters.

  The feeling of calm certainly did not come from the environment of the main room itself, which was crowded with tables, cabinets, shelves and bookcases. It was a disgrace for a feng shui master to work in such a chaotic space, but Wong had long since given up any attempt to control the architectural decisions of Ms Lim. Many powerful business-people in Singapore would eagerly await his oracle-like pronouncements on how to order their offices, but he dared not proffer similar advice to Winnie. A fiery twenty-six-year old from a Kuching Chinese family, she believed that since she was the office administrator, all physical aspects of the office were hers to administrate. In reality, her principal daytime interest was to practise and refine the techniques of make-up and nail polish application.

  Some four years ago, when the company had opened, one part of the single large room they had leased had been blocked off to make a separate room for the chief (and only) geomancer. Wong had initially tried to make it into a ch’ienergy-focusing workroom for himself, but it had proved too small and badly positioned.

  In feng shui terms, following the School of the Eight Houses, the office was a Tui Kua dwelling, its back facing west and door facing east. His cubby-hole was between southwest (good—indicating blossoming health) and south (bad—the Location of the Five Ghosts), so he had had a lot of work to do to make it usable. Worse still, it was close to Winnie’s desk. The judicious positioning of a metal chime served to ward off the worst of her excess of fire ch’i.

  Nevertheless, these days Wong worked in the main office at a desk at right angles to Winnie’s and used his room only for meditation, thinking, ancestor worship, auspicious-day rituals and afternoon naps.

  No, the feeling of peace definitely came from within, he decided. It came from the good night’s sleep he had had. It came from the satisfying oil stick doughnut he had eaten at the breakfast noodle cafe on his way to work. It came from the cheery babbling of the kettle in the corner of the office. It came from the fact that today was his fifty-sixth birthday, although he had never celebrated birthdays, not even as a child. It was a good number, fifty-six, far better than the awful fifty-five, with its strongly negative numerological connotations. No, fifty-six was good, a number denoting age and maturity and statesmanship. A year of wisdom. A time when he surely had something worth saying, and ought to be listened to. He really must get that book of his finished.

  With that thought, he pulled his journal out of a drawer and started to write again.

  Monday dawned hot and hazy, with the air itself seeming tired and listless. The sun rose slowly and seemed to draw a curtain of opaque mist from the ground. Constellations of dust, lifted by the drifting air, spiralled upwards in the crisp white rays leaning through the windows. The neighbourhood was temporarily woken at seven o’clock by a minor emergency: a small fire in the building opposite, apparently caused by a joss stick falling out of a shrine dedicated to the God of Safety, according to the watchman. Sirens shook the buildings until a fireman arrived to find an elderly Buddhist nun had stamped out the fire with her bare feet—hard calloused hooves which were quite undamaged by the harsh usage.

  Wong, who had already been to his first meeting of the day, arrived, sweating, at the door of his office at 9.30, and was greeted by a worried-looking Winnie nodding at a large figure sitting on his desk, reading a foreign magazine.

  ‘M.C. Queeny. She’s not a boy, you see,’ said Winnie.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, seeing.

  Ms McQuinnie hopped off the desk, strode across the room in two steps and shook his hand firmly. Her name was not Joe, but Joyce, although her family called her Jo or Jojo. She was not interested in filing. She was in her gap year, whatever that was, and was doing a project about oriental geomancy with a private tutor as part of her application to get into an exclusive college. She wanted to spend some of her summer observing Wong and learning about the practice. She wanted to be his ‘shadow’, as she put it. She wanted to watch how he worked in the office and accompany him on field visits. She had been in Singapore three weeks. She emitted a torrent of words, but what language was it in?

  ‘I’m like, “So how am I going to become an instant feng shooee master, then?” And my dad’s like, “My mate Mr Pun’s got a real feng shooee master and you can work for him for three months.” And I’m like, “Wow.”’

  Wong stared.

  ‘I’ll be like, totally quiet and stuff,’ she added with a laugh. ‘You won’t even know I’m here. Ha ha ha ha ha.’

  Wong realised immediately that this person could not be quiet, even if she had her larynx surgically removed. Her look was not quiet. She was big. She wore bright colours. She was a Westerner. It would be as logical for a giraffe to say he is inconspicuous because he has no voice. Some people just don’t fit in some places. What was that English phrase in 500 English Idioms Explained about bulls? She was like a bull in China.

  She laughed again, for no particular reason. Wong realised that it was a nervous laugh. They stared at each other for a moment, silenced. This is not going to work, he thought. Still, think of Mr Pun. Must make sure he gets positive feedback. ‘So you are interested in becoming a feng shui master yourself?’ Wong asked, forcing his cheeks to rise in a smile, and carefully enunciating the Chinese phrase for geomancy in his Guangdong accent as foong soi.

  She roared with what the geomancer took to be scorn. ‘Me? No way! I wanna be rich. Where do I put my stuff?’

  Winnie cleared one of the stock tables for Ms McQuinnie to use as a desk. The intruder immediately shoved her desk towards the window with one foot. ‘Better view,’ she explained, forgetting the insult implicit in her desire to rearrange furniture in a geomancer’s premises. After making herself comfortable—with her desk causing an awkward swirl of energy right towards the meditation area—she explained to Wong that she just wanted to write about feng shui from an academic point of view.

  ‘I mean, I dunno if I even believe in the stuff. I’m generally, pretty—you know—skeptical about any sort of like magic or mumbo-jumbo, not that I mean that your work is mumbo-jumbo, no way. But I might try and write it up in a sort of debunking way, because my tutor likes a bit of controversy.’

  Wong was not sure what ‘mumbo-jumbo’ or ‘debunking’ meant, but he knew that he was not going to be comfortable with this young woman in his office. His observations over the next half hour confirmed this. She was too foreign, too young, too loud, too large and too curious about his work. She kept asking questions. She wrote down everything he sai
d. She listened intently to all his phone conversations. He had to resort to Putonghua, Hakka, Hokkien and Cantonese with callers who shared those languages.

  She then went out to a shop and returned with a big cardboard bucket of something she called Tall Skinny Latte, which smelt of bitter coffee and cow milk, and made him feel so sick that he was unable to finish the stewed colon he had picked up from a hawker for his lunch. She laughed like a braying donkey on the telephone to her friends, the way only men should laugh. Her squeals were so loud they could be heard by his friends on his phone, and he feared they would think he had moved his office to a slaughterhouse.

  He examined her out of the corner of his eye as he prepared his reports that afternoon. Ms Joyce McQuinnie was somewhere between fourteen and thirty (Wong had always found it difficult to tell the age of Westerners), and she was highly social, spending a lot of time on the phone organising a get-together to celebrate her new ‘job’. She had been an inch or two taller than he when she had arrived in the office, but shrank to his size when she settled in, having removed her shoes. She had very pale skin with a light covering of freckles, and shaggy hair that was a slightly reddish shade of brown, like a squirrel-fur coat. She wore men’s work boots with thick rubber soles, above which he noticed dark tights, a short skirt and a large, shapeless sweater. She seemed to have five metal studs in one ear, and seven in the other. She wore no rings, but had giant Indian bangles on both wrists, which jangled as she moved, and threatened to tip her coffee over.

  ‘Is she pretty?’ asked a friend of his, on the phone from Kuala Lumpur.

  ‘She’s a mat salleh,’ Wong whispered.

  But she made some effort to demonstrate an interest in her subject. The young woman spent the morning looking through books on feng shui, and the afternoon attempting to get to grips with the filing system—no easy task, since Winnie made it up as she went along, the main reason why she could not be replaced.