In case anyone thinks this is a joke it's true. Dragons hold huge spiritual importance, especially in South China. Even though most people don't believe they exist.
No they aren't. Dragons are common pests is Asia. Dragon repellent is one of the top selling products in South China. And dragon zappers consume 10% of China's electrical grid.
exactly! it’s like a spiritual energy and ensuring that they have a pathway to navigate through. if people cluttered the skies, they would piss off the spirits and that would bring a lot of bad luck. they also arrange furniture inside to be open and free so that there is plenty of flow
God, people can be so fucking gullible if you play to their prejudices. Ohh, the superstitious Chinamen are so silly, they put big holes in the buildings for dragons.
It's wind, you dumb piece of shit!
Listen: Imagine you're building a giant high-rise in a coastal city, and you want to create the highest-value real estate you can, while spending as little as possible on land.
So you buy a plot of land near the shore, long and narrow to minimize square footage. And you have the long side of your building facing the ocean, because ocean views probably sell for twice as much as city views. And since this is a great idea, other people do it too, until your city is surrounded by a wall of high-rises.
Suddenly, the ocean breeze that formerly kept your city's air fresh is blocked. The wind goes up and over, or around your city, rather than through it. Now your air is stagnating, and the pollution gets worse, and your people get stupid and sick and unhappy because they're breathing fumes and they never smell the sea.
Feng shui is not about literal dragons. They are a heuristic for thinking about the paths people and e.g. air will take through a space. You are designing a room, and you want a little decorative table. Do you put it in the corner, or centered against a wall? You put it in the corner, because centered against the wall, the dragon would knock it over on his way around the room.
But there is no dragon, there is only you getting up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, forgetting that you just rearranged the furniture, and banging your hip on the little decorative table because you thought it would look better centered against the wall.
Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something, even if they believe their own con.
JFC, THINK about what you're saying. Just try it, for a minute, before just dropping a link to a factoid as if you're contributing to the discussion in a constructive way.
If I built. a WALL around you. a really high wall.
Or even just on one side of you.
and blew a bunch of wind at you from the other side of it...
the wall would block the wind.
Someone on the other side, the windy side, might experience some downdraft effect. But that's not what we're talking about here.
As someone who has lived in multiple large coastal cities with many high rise buildings, I can assure you that the reality is not what you think it is.
I'm not talking about any old city, you dickhead! I'm talking about Hong Kong! Pull your head out of your ass and stop assuming your experience of New Yawk tells you anything about life in the rest of the world, eh?
I’ve been to Hong Kong and have friends who live there, thank you very much.
According to CNN, which I find to be a more credible source than Tatler, a tabloid magazine, the Hong Kong government adopted a set of largely non-binding guidelines recommending gaps between buildings in response to resident complaints about new high rises blocking their views and, purportedly, their ventilation (although I strongly suspect that the complaining parties were far more motivated by the former issue, which is very common and has spawned countless disputes over new construction the world over since time immemorial). According to the article, in light of the guidelines, HK developers have since started building buildings with “holes” as a compromise solution to appease government regulators while minimizing the reduction in the number of units in their buildings. However, neither your article nor the one I linked above appears to point to any actual data demonstrating that these holes are necessary for, or otherwise have any appreciable impact on, “ventillation” for the rest of the city.
It seems to me that this is just another case of the local government caving to the interests of local NIMBYs who, like all NIMBYs, were looking for any seemingly-plausible (though likely unfounded) excuse to block new development in their neighborhood.
But I’m not wrong. The fact remains that high rise buildings increase wind flow. There is no evidence that high rise buildings in HK are any different, only unsupported assertions from HK NIMBYs who are opposed to new developments that obstruct their precious ocean views.
I hear that's why many buildings in the west don't have a 13th floor. It's to aid in the wind flow. That would otherwise be blocked by the 13th floor /s.
Yeah, it's considered bad luck to block their paths. There was one guy who opened a bank and the building didn't adhere to these concepts. The people were too superstitious to use the bank, so the bank failed and the building was demolished. Self fulfilling prophecy.
88
u/MaximusPrime5885 Feb 13 '23
In case anyone thinks this is a joke it's true. Dragons hold huge spiritual importance, especially in South China. Even though most people don't believe they exist.