This from last week's South China Morning Post newspaper: The Hong Kong government has admitted spending millions of dollars in order to rebalance the feng shui of neighboring businesses and apartment buildings that have been near government construction projects.
City officials have promised to draw up strict guidelines on the practice after a campaign by the South China Morning Post forced them to admit that at least 9 million Hong Kong dollars had been spent in recent years compensating people living around construction projects for disturbing their feng shui.
Feng shui, a system of Chinese fortune-telling, has been used for centuries to orientate buildings in an auspicious manner, in order to help the flow of qi, or vital energy.
The practice of feng shui was banned in China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s but has made a dramatic revival in recent years, especially in the superstitious south.
In Hong Kong, anyone whose property is affected by a public construction project is entitled to claim compensation from the government for damage to their qi. Typically, claimants ask the government to pay for a "tun fu" cleansing ritual, which involves a feng shui master performing rites.
In recent years, roads, bridges, tunnels and phone lines have been judged to have offended feng shui. The most notable recent offense was caused by a new express rail link between Hong Kong and Guangzhou, for which at least 17 compensation payments have been lodged.
Since feng shui is a subjective art, critics have said the cleansing rituals amount to a shakedown, with feng shui masters and landlords colluding to launch outrageous claims before splitting the proceeds.
After being pressed in the Hong Kong parliament, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, the secretary for development, said there would be improvements in "operational transparency" on the feng shui payments. However, she declined to open an investigation into how much had been spent.
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