Word: feng
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Most Hong Kong enterprises avoid such bad vibrations by contracting with a feng shui master while their buildings are still in the planning stage. The ultramodern $650 million Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building, which the Bank of China tower would rival for dominance of the city's skyline, prudently had its blueprints vetted by feng shui experts. For a fee of several thousand dollars, a feng shui master advised moving a bank officer's door away from a nearby escalator to preserve the delicate yin-yang. Management, mindful of the feng shui faith of the Hong Kong Chinese...
Alluding to the sometimes bizarre recommendations of feng shui masters, an ancient Chinese proverb states, "If you invite a geomancer into your house, you may as well start packing to move now." Hong Kong's Exchange Square building has managed to remain on its site -- with a few strategic revisions. During his survey, Feng Shui Master Chung Ying-Mei decreed that the structure's base must form a U shape, which he claimed was much more receptive to the good fortune emanating from the bay. Architect Remo Riva complied. Says Riva: "He said we should also put up an antenna...
Harvard began putting its card catalogue on a computer database in 1976, and created the Distributable Union Catalogue (DUC), a set of microfiches covering all books bought since the mid-70s. About 130 stations--with fiches and readers--have been installed around the system, but Feng says that while Harvard could completely computerize the system and have researchers call up catalogue information on a computer screen, officials feel the convenience doesn't justify the expense...
...addition to the arduous task of typing in information on each of the 11 million volumes, computers would cost money every time they are used--while the DUC stations' only ongoing expense is for the light with which to read the fiches and for replacing damaged materials. Feng also says. "We have been very happily surprised about how good people would be with the fiche," and that the system has held up far better under intensive use than anyone had expected. Other areas where computers might be called is to help include the reserve books system, which is "growing...
...scholars agree on, a heart, is that Harvard's reputation as a scholarship university stands directly on the strength of its research library, and that the problems of space and preservation are acute. The size and scope of the system offer tremendous bait to professors being courted by Harvard, Feng says, and scholars here concur...