Thursday, May 14, 2009

We have been working for peanuts!

We Feng Shui people have been working for peanuts.

From the late Nina Wang estate lawsuit, it shows that Nina had paid HK$10M (US$1.3M) "bonus" to her Feng Shui consultant after his Feng Shui "formation" helped her win her late husband's estate (I may write about this FS "formation" when I have time).

But compare to this "little bonus", Tony Chan, the secret lover and litigant for the sole beneficiary of Nina's huge estate, got paid even "more".

According to the original heir of Nina, Chinachem charity, Nina had paid Chan a total of THREE payments of about HK$688 million (US$88.8 million) EACH for his Feng Shui service!

I guess this is the highest a Feng Shui guy has made in history-- US$270M in 15 years.

Chan claims that Nina had sent him cash by the truckloads!

For those who wants to know more about the juicy contents of this case, please read:

Foreign news reports often cut the Feng Shui part of the case. There are quite a few interesting Feng Shui details within and outside this case.

It is obvious that Chan's lawyers portray Chan as a Feng Shui idiot ("low level Feng Shui knowledge") and that it is "love" that Nina Wang willed the estate to him; whereas the heir said that Chan is good at Feng Shui and had run a Feng Shui shop and did Feng Shui audits for local celebrities before running into Nina.

The original heir hits the case from all possible fronts:
1. portrays Chan as a Feng Shui master and used ritualistic Feng Shui trick to dupe Nina out of her estate.
2. the will is forged
3. if the will is not forged, then Nina's mental condition are questionable at the time when the will was written
4. Nina's 2002 will was very elaborated, amended 5 times and was written in Chinese. Chan's alleged will is short, in English and has writing errors.
----
In terms of the court of public opinion, Chan loses. The public perceive him as greedy and stealing from charity, especially he was already paid HK$2800M (US$360M) by his own admission. Not to mention the moral implications that he started the affair 3 months after he had married his current wife.
--
This brings up a dilemma for FS expert witness. Most FS lineages have strict rules on who their students can serve. Here are some common "no service" groups:
--
-- non-filial persons
-- disloyal persons
-- gambling halls
-- brothels
-- immoral people
-- greedy people
-- mean people
-- rich but unkind people
-- shameless people
--
The western notion of justice assumes someone is innocent unless proven guilty. Chinese and most Asian countries have the opposite idea: you are guilty unless proven othewise. So it is easier to be FS expert witness in the west when your client has not yet been proven guilty.
--
The FS expert witness for Chan will be in a no-win situation. If winning the case, the local FS community and the public are likely to perceived him/her as helping Chan to grab money from charity. If losing the case, will there be more witness job or even local FS jobs coming?
--
Chan is smart to get someone from overseas instead of a local master who is likely to be biased.
--
Well, I'm going to re-price my courses, so that I can afford more peanuts... maybe it is easier to find a rich client.
--
--
Ken Lai
"Practical Date-Selection Methods (incl. XKDG) w/ 12 hr. video
"Practical Imperial Qi-men-Dun-Jia" w/ 10 hr. video
"Daoist Talismans for Feng Shui & Blessing" v.2 w/ 24 hr video
"Practical Door Feng Shui for Wealth" w/ 3 hr. video"
"4-Pillars Forecasting Bootcamp" with 12 hr. video