The Feng Shui Detective

by Nury Vittachi

  ‘Monkey-house?’ asked Wong.

  ‘Yeah, monkey-house,’ said his young assistant. ‘Place where monks hang out. Not to be confused with “monastery”, which is the technical word for a building at the zoo where the monkeys are kept.’

  Wong wrote it down. What a strange language English was.

  Stepping out of the airport in Ho Chi Minh City was like entering the world’s biggest convection oven. There was a light breeze blowing, but rather than cooling the skin, the wind seemed to blast heat at them.

  ‘Wow. I won’t need a hairdryer,’ Joyce said. She watched amazed as an ice cream in the clutches of a small girl next to them melted in seconds and poured out of her hand. The young woman removed her denim jacket, being careful not to displace her earrings, a gold stud from Sri Lanka from which dangled a tiny holographic picture of a seated Buddha.

  As is the case outside most Asian city airports, there was a bewildering mass of people standing around, and no obvious way of differentiating one party from another. How would they find who they were looking for? But seconds later, a tiny, brown, bird-like man in a floral print shirt scuttled up to Wong and shook his hand firmly. ‘CF, hello, hello, welcome to Vietnam. I haven’t seen you for a long time. Seven-eight years maybe?’

  The geomancer nodded and bowed and then introduced the newcomer to Joyce. Porntip’s glee vanished like a popped soap bubble. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, no, no, no,’ he said, sharply withdrawing the hand that he had proffered in her direction. ‘I’m sorry…’ He looked back at Wong. ‘She’s a woman,’ he complained.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wong. ‘A woman.’

  ‘She’s not a man. She’s a woman.’

  Joyce, irritated, grabbed the front of her skirt as if she were offering to lift it up. ‘Would you like to have a look and make absolutely sure?’ she asked.

  ‘No need,’ said Porntip.

  ‘Not necessary,’ said Wong.

  In the car on the way to the temple, Wong and Porntip discussed the problem. Wong had apparently forgotten or had never realised how strict the temple was on the subject of women. It was rare for females to be allowed through the gates at any time of the day or night, the Thai businessman said, and one would never be allowed to stay the night.

  ‘No women at all, ever?’ asked Wong.

  ‘There is an open day once or twice a year, and then women can come, but only if they make a big donation or give presents, you know?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘May. The Lord Buddha’s birthday. Vesak. Also Dharma Day, Sangha Day.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Joyce. ‘I’ll just wait outside until May.’

  ‘Cannot. We are only here for one night,’ Wong explained.

  Not for the first time, Joyce lamented the lack of irony in conversations in Asia.

  The driver of the ageing Nissan was Porntip’s nephew, a chain-smoking young man of about sixteen, who went by the single name of Bin. He had left his window open and the temperature of the air rushing through the car varied from cool to searing, depending on its speed. After about forty-five minutes, the car hit the outskirts of Saigon proper, and slowed to a crawl. Porntip wound the window up and switched on a noisy and ineffective air-conditioner.

  The little man had not aimed a single word at Joyce, and refused to catch her eye, despite the fact that when he turned around from his front passenger seat to talk to Wong, who was directly behind him, his line of sight ran past her.

  ‘Why no women can come?’ asked Wong.

  ‘They had a monk there who turned out to be a sex-change person,’ said Porntip. ‘When they found out, they threw him, er, her, out, of course. I think that was the last time they had a woman inside.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘She was one of those, you know, third sex people.’

  ‘Yes, I know. In Singapore we have them too. We call them homo sapiens. They go to nightclubs. But in Singapore mostly are men.’

  ‘Yes. But sometimes there are women like that. Very perverted.’ Porntip gave that strange Thai laugh that signifies embarrassment rather than humour. ‘Women and women together,’ he added in a horrified whisper.

  ‘Have read about them. Pervert women. Short hair. In Singapore, they are known as Lebanese,’ said the geomancer.

  ‘Lesbians,’ Joyce inserted.

  ‘Yes, Lesbianese. Anyway, when did this happen? The sex-change monk?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe five-six years ago.’

  Joyce, who was still seething, remarked that the temple did not seem to be very well up on the present understanding of the rights of transsexuals or transvestites or whatever the person might have been. ‘It doesn’t seem very religious to me to discriminate against people with a different sexual orientation,’ she said.

  Wong gave her a long, hard look before replying. ‘Joyce please to remember. This is Asia. Those sort of people have no rights.’

  Twenty minutes later, they were out onto the open road, and an hour of more restful driving into the rural areas brought them to the gates of the Buddhist Vihara of St Sanctus, in a tiny hamlet close to the village of Tho, southeast of Saigon.

  Porntip told them to leave the bags in his car, while their arrival was announced. Wong answered several questions from Joyce about the organisation. The vihara was more like a convent than a standard temple, he said. It was closed to the public and its members were kept in a state of isolation. Nor was it involved in the sort of high-turnover ‘conscript’ Buddhism sometimes found in South-East Asia, where young men spend a couple of years as monks as part of their upbringing.

  Just looking at it, Joyce could tell that this was a rural Zen Buddhist temple of a really old school. It was a large, prison-like compound. High, windowless walls in a muddy red colour framed a heavy wooden door with wrought iron fittings. You entered to escape the world, and some monks never left except in a box when they were dead, Wong had told her. ‘Scary,’ she had replied.

  There was no need to knock. As soon as they approached, a small opening, about 6 inches square, slid open in the door. A pair of dark eyes glanced momentarily at Wong and then looked sharply and intensely at McQuinnie. The look was not one of lust, but fear. The little metal opening was slammed shut.

  Nothing happened for a while. It was hot. Joyce was aware of her heart beating and her clothes being damp. The air felt clammy on her skin. The surroundings were quiet compared to Saigon. The boy Bin now kept staring at her. For some reason, she didn’t mind.

  Six minutes and thirty-three seconds later, they heard footsteps again. The little opening slid open with a metallic scrape. A male voice started talking in Vietnamese. Porntip replied.

  For the next few minutes, there were complex and high-octane negotiations between Porntip and the face behind the door. During this, the Thai businessman and the small, squat face in the door gave several pointed glances at Joyce. Porntip was evidently trying to get permission for the young woman to enter on the grounds that she was a professional consultant. They could tell from his hardened face at the end of the discussion that the outcome had been unsuccessful.

  ‘He says we and Bin can go in, but not the child.’

  She blinked. ‘You don’t mean me?’

  ‘Yes, he means her,’ Porntip said.

  ‘I am a woman of nearly eighteen years old,’ she spat, her forehead turning into an angry map of lines. ‘THAT is a child.’ She gestured at Porntip’s short, tousle-headed nephew, who looked very much younger than she did.

  ‘Adolescence for women continues until twenty-four according to the tradition of this house,’ said Porntip. ‘Boys become adults at thirteen. I’m sorry, she is a woman and child, so she won’t be able to enter.’

  ‘That’s so dumb,’ snapped Joyce.

  ‘Why don’t you go shopping? There are some very nice tourist shops about an hour’s drive from here,’ said Porntip. ‘I can give you my nephew to guide you if you like.’

  This was a bad idea on Porntip’s part, Wong knew. If there was anything Joyce McQuinnie hate
d, it was the assumption that she was a shopping addict-particularly since it was true.

  ‘I didn’t come here to shop,’ she lied, icily.

  ‘No time for that. Got your lo pan and books?’ Wong asked, taking her arm and pointing to the distance. ‘I do in side of the temple grounds and you do outside. Many, many influences here, I can see. Look at those trees. And that pointed thing there. You have a lot to do, Joyce. You will be more busy than me even. We meet again here in two hours. Okay or not?’

  ‘Yeah, guess so,’ she said, partly mollified by being taken seriously. She accepted the notebook he handed her.

  ‘Ask Mr Porntip to go with you, okay or not?’

  ‘No, I’ll be okay by myself, thank you.’

  ‘Bin can help. See you in two hours.’

  Bin tilted his head to one side and gave her a toothy grin. ‘You like pirate CDs?’ he said. ‘Original artist, only 2 US dollars. Also software. Windows Office latest one. Tomb Raider III. Movies.’

  ‘Where?’ said Joyce.

  ‘Follow,’ said Bin.

  Wong stepped through the door and was welcomed by a bulky man in a robe. The inside of the temple grounds were very similar to the modern Vietnamese temples he had seen tourists swarm all over-the only difference was that the tourist traps seemed more holy. More money flowed around and through them, and there was more motivation to make them visually conform to expectations, Wong mused. In contrast closed holy houses such as this were clean, dull and rather featureless.

  His escort, who introduced himself as Brother Wasuran, explained that Master Tran had been summoned to a meeting of a Buddhist organisation in Saigon and would not be back until the evening or even the following morning.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Wong. ‘Always a great pleasure to spend time in a monkey-house like this.’

  Although not attractive, the premises were functional. There was a large central courtyard with the objects of veneration in a building in the centre. The middle of the space was shared with a large bo tree, said to have been grown from a sprig of the tree under which Siddharta Gautama had sat. Over to the west was a rather dry, dusty garden, and to the east and the north were some rows of low buildings where the monks’ sleeping cells were. A training block stood to the south, and just next to it were the offices and the private rooms of the senior monks. Everything was a faded red.

  ‘Already can see problems,’ said Wong, peering into one of the cells of the northern sleeping block. ‘Sleep rooms are in north of grounds. They are entered by door facing northeast. But beds are pointing south. All this not a good combination. North is good for bedrooms for man and wife. Good for sex. But very bad for monks with no woman. I think can fix. Definitely have to move beds. Also maybe move door to sleeping block. And paint colour is no good. Must change. All paint colours.’

  The geomancer stepped towards the middle of the courtyard and cast his eyes around again, then tapped his lo pan. ‘Also, garden in the west. I think that was not there before, is it?’

  ‘No, there used to be a shed for the carts there, but it fell down. We cleared it and turned it into a vegetable garden about two years ago,’ said Brother Wasuran, a rotund man of about forty, with a raspy voice and a neanderthal brow.

  ‘Plants are alive. Have very special sort of energy. Must be placed carefully. Can be very good. But now are in southwest. This is direction of soil ch’i. Not so good. Need make some changes there also.’

  Wong was busy scratching notes into his pad when it occurred to him that he had not asked whether there was a specific issue which had to be resolved. Master Tran had explained in his letter that he was worried about ‘a general air of malingering and delinquency’, neither of which were words he understood, even after looking them up. ‘Is there some big problem I must fix?’ he asked. ‘What did Master Tran want me to do?’

  ‘There are lots of problems. He did not tell me exactly what to tell you. I think generally there is some unhappiness among the brothers. Twice we have found liquor bottles hidden in dark places. Once we found a magazine showing shocking indecent pictures and writings about, you know, man-woman relations and such things. We also found a case of 2000 cigarettes, and a television machine, you know, what do you call it? A video machine? We could not work out how it had come into the vihara, because the brothers do not go in and out very much, and we keep a careful watch on the door at all times.’

  ‘I see. Have many problems.’

  ‘There are other problems. We have many rats in the temple now. Hard to sleep. They live in the roof, run, run at night, very noisy,’ he rasped.

  Wong made careful notes. He spoke to Wasuran as he scribbled. ‘Harmony is very important. Hsun Tzu said: “The stars go round; the sun and moon shine in turn; the four seasons come one after another; the yin and the yang go through their changes; wind and rain are widely distributed; all thing acquire harmony and have their lives.”’

  ‘It is so.’

  ‘Your problems: any more?’

  ‘Yes. I think Master Tran was worried because three men asked to leave. They want to stop being brothers, get married, they say. We think one of them must have brought the video machine and the bad magazine into the place, but no one admits it.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘The men?’

  ‘No. The magazine.’

  ‘It was called Australian Women’s Weekly. Many things about love and conjugal things. Shocking.’

  CF Wong and Joyce McQuinnie spent the afternoon working at a dining table in a nearby restaurant. After Porntip had introduced them as consultants working for the vihara, the owner was happy to attract good karma by letting them use the place in the lull between the midday and evening rush periods.

  The assignment was turning out to be an enjoyable challenge. Joyce had bought some CDs, which put her in a good mood, and then efficiently mapped out the area surrounding the temple. She had discovered some major elements that needed to be taken into consideration: a village well, due south of the temple, a coffin shop to the northeast, and an electricity pylon, almost facing the front gate, albeit a long way off.

  Wong carefully described the inside of the temple grounds to his assistant. He drew diagrams to explain each block’s relation to the other, and tried to describe the condition of the buildings. ‘It not too beautiful, but it is very span and spic,’ he said.

  ‘Spic and span,’ said Joyce.

  ‘Spic and span, span and spic, what difference?’ Wong complained.

  ‘Good question. Never mind. What else?’

  Joyce was particularly intrigued by the stories of the video recorder, cigarettes and a magazine being smuggled into the building. ‘It has no windows that you can like reach from the ground, so the guys must have hidden them under their robes. The magazine I can understand, but a video-that must be tough to tuck into your underpants.’

  ‘Monks are not wearing underpants, I believe.’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know, and don’t expect to find out on this trip.’

  Wong drew large and indecipherable maps showing the objects he considered key, immovable elements: the well, the bo tree, the outer walls and main buildings of the vihara.

  Then he sketched in signs and symbols using his lo pan. He knew Joyce was frustrated that he wrote in Chinese characters, but was darkly aware his written English might contain embarrassing mistakes. The animal signs for each direction were then drawn in, with each given 30 degrees of the compass, starting from dragon in the north to snake in the northwest.

  After consulting his old books, all of which were in Chinese, and drawing several lo shu diagrams, Wong started to formulate a plan. He explained it to Joyce, who wrote it out in carefully correct English, for delivery to the guardians of the temple tomorrow morning.

  At four o’clock, Joyce revealed she was bursting to go on a serious shopping trip. By this time, she had made firm friends with Porntip’s nephew. Bin was clearly awestruck by her presence, and she shamelessly exploited this, using him
as a personal tour guide.

  ‘Bin’s taking me shopping. I’ll be back in a few hours. Where am I sleeping tonight?’

  ‘You sleep here in Porntip’s house,’ said Wong. ‘I go back to temple now. Check our maps. I need to talk to Brother Wasuran. I sleep there. In case Master Tran returns. I will come here tomorrow. Meet you for breakfast.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Seven o’clock; okay or not?’

  ‘Seven! Way too early. Can’t we make it eight or nine?’

  ‘Monks will be awake at five o’clock already. Our flight at 10.50. Must leave to go to the airport at nine or 9.30.’

  ‘Okay, okay, seven it is. Jeez.’ She turned her full attention to Bin. She gave him a bewitching smile and draped one arm carelessly over his shoulder. ‘I need like a basketweave CD case. For my Discman, you know? There’s one that holds six CDs but my friend Melissa says you can also get one that holds twelve CDs and it has a headphone pocket.’

  The love-struck Bin nodded and led her to the car.

  By eight o’clock, darkness was falling, and the Vihara of St Sanctus was silent, except for odd scuttling noises, which Wong knew must be the rats. He tried to settle in his room, which was as bare and unappealing as a prison cell. His physical discomfort was partly compensated for by his feeling of emotional satisfaction. By making some relatively small physical changes, and altering the uses of several blocks, he was sure he could bring about major improvements to the feng shui of the monkey-house. He was convinced this would be quickly detectable, and gain him goodwill in the next world if not hard cash.

  He placed his oil lamp on the small table and pushed the bed to a different angle, so the top of his head would be pointing towards the north.

  As he settled down for the evening, he mused on his love-hate relationship with holy places. How could a feng shui master not be intrigued by places which had been devoted to unseen influences for centuries? Yet implementing changes in religious centres had always been difficult in the past. He would give the man in charge a list of changes which needed to be made, and they would make some of them on the spot, and make pledges to change the rest after he had gone. But he would probably not be invited back for an inspection and a salting, or closing ceremony. He would generally be left to hope that they did what he had suggested, and did not overrule his instructions. There was a lot of jealousy in mysticism, he decided. Once one gets some talent for sorting out the unseen influences on life, others who claim some ability in the same field quickly start to exhibit the worst sort of professional jealousy. Still, Master Tran had invited him to visit. What could be done? And he felt at peace. He had done his job well. He was in a house of spirituality. And it was good for him to be with monks, away from negative influences such as business-people, women and so on.