The Feng Shui Story

                                                           The Feng Shui Story

                                                                    Written 1/2019

                                                                     Howard Yasgar

Back in the 1990’s I was making Marine parts in Miami Florida.

It was a time when the Japanese and the Taiwanese were making inroads into the U.S. market.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that  Japan and Taiwan were soon going to dominate the  parts making business U.S.

The Japanese salesmen that were coming to sell to us were difficult to deal with, if you asked them a question, they would talk among themselves in Japanese, excluding us from the conversation.  It became obvious that the Japanese felt that we were inferior and they were superior to us. However at about the same time the Taiwanese were also entering into the U.S. Market, but they were doing it much nicer way.

Many Taiwanese  chose American or European style first names, that alone made  talking and dealing them much easier than the Japanese, also the Taiwanese were much more eager in trying to obtain our business.

Eventually, I decided that for us to survive in our manufacturing business we needed to be making parts in Taiwan.  

My wife and I decided that we would take our next vacation in Taiwan, and seek out manufacturers that we could do business with.

I knew that we were going to enter into a culture very different from our own and I was anxious to see just how different from us they would be.

I had prepared a list of companies in Taipei that we could visit. However the moment we were in our Hotel room, the phone never stopped ringing. They were Taiwanese companies offering to send cars to pick us up and bring us to their factories.

I found that when reading the Taipei phone book was geared to attract foreign buyers, and I found several  interesting companies I wanted to visit.

One of them was called “Paal”, they specialized in making small quantities of parts, just what we needed.

Paal’s office was located in an apartment building, and for me that was a cultural surprise. In Taiwan an apartment  building could have a small factory in one apartment and a family with kids in the next apartment.

The Company Paal was run by  a fellow named Kiv Wang and his cousin Han Chen. They used a whole group of  small manufactures to subcontract for them.

We started doing business with Paal, and they served our needs very well  for the next several years.

Eventually our business with them grew so large that they felt that they needed to put up  an industrial building, with the entire second floor to be devoted to making parts for us.

They called me to tell me that they were actively looking for property in an industrial zone to build a Factory, we was just as excited as they were.

Eventually after several weeks, they happily called to tell me they found a location, so I asked when they would start building?

Oh, they said, first we need the Feng Shui to approve it.

Feng Shui, what the heck is a Feng Shui I asked. Well I learned that the Feng Shui is a Chinese Pseudoscience that claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals or buildings with their surrounding environment. So before they would buy the  piece of property, they needed the Feng Shui’s approval.

This sounded like nonsense to me, but I asked them how much the Feng Shui charged  to look over the property, they said $500.00 U.S.

Needless to say I was shocked, back in the 90’s $500.00 was no small sum.

A few days later they called me to say the Feng Shui said “Bu Hao” in Chinese that means no Good.

Several weeks went by, while they looked for another property.

Eventually they called me to say they found another property, and the Feng Shui was going over to check it out.

By now I felt the Feng Shui was like a Gypsy fortune teller, the gypsy’s knew how much money they could squeeze out of a client just by looking at them.

Sure enough, Kiv called me to say the Feng Shui had again said Bu Hao, (No Good) turning down the property, at a cost to Paal of another $500.00 U.S.

But Kiv said, not to worry, the real estate agent was out looking for another property.

I said, don’t worry Kiv, the next  property is also going to be Bu Hao (No Good) also. But I can 100% assure you that the fourth property will be “Hen Hao” (Good).

Kiv said, how do you know that? I said, when the Feng Shui met you and saw how nice your offices were, like a gypsy fortune teller he knew how much money you were good for. He felt he could squeeze $1500.00  U.S. out of you.

Kiv said, I was wrong, Feng Shui has been used by all Chinese people for a thousand years.

I never said any more about it to Kiv, and he never said anything about it again to me.

The Feng Shui did BU Hao the third property making a total of $1500.00 U.S.

However, just as I had said  he approved the fourth one.

Like our Gypsy fortune tellers, the Chinese Feng Shui are no dopes.