February 21, 2006
While foreign banks in Taiwan have been using local executives for a while now, some have even started to follow the local custom of fengshui when designing their offices and bank branches.
Standard Chartered Bank has designed a bank branch here in Taiwan that has been compared to an elegant six-star hotel and a spa. At the front door clients first pass by a green bamboo grove. According to fengshui, the sections of ascending bamboo stalks represent a state of steady rising. Just inside the front door is a large waterfall which streams 365 days a year into the interior of the office. Water flowing inward is said to lead to wealth flowing inward, while flowing water in general is considered a good way to generate wealth.
These and other fengshui measures are intended to bring good fortune and wealth to the bank and its clients and employees, but they also make the office more beautiful and comfortable. Upon visiting Taiwan, Standard Chartered's high-level global executives were said to be quite impressed by the design of the office. Now, the bank has even begun to use flowing water as a standard in designing its global bank branches. Its branches in South Korea, Thailand and India have already incorporated moving water in their designs.
Though Standard Chartered appreciates the luck and prosperity fengshui can help bring, the bank chose to turn down the services of more traditional masters which insisted on such ancient practices as having the bank's executives eat raw pig liver or hanging a goat's head at the bank's front door. In the end, it selected a fengshui master who is a college professor. The master's practical and feasible recommendations left the bank very pleased with the results.
Citibank has also made some adjustments in accordance with the suggestions of fengshui masters. The bank's Wenhua Road branch in the Taipei suburb of Banchiao is situated right across from a large Buddhist temple, meaning that its front sign faced the temple head on. Fengshui considers it a bad thing for a business's sign to face another building directly, so Citibank chose to make some minor adjustments to the sign to rectify the problem.
Other fengshui-inspired decisions at Citibank include the use of a round table, which is representative of money rolling out more money, in the bank's VIP conference room and a light that is turned on permanently in the branch manager's office.
(United Daily News)
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