Zhou the Millionaire V

As the rich merchant was growing richer, he began to consider building a great mansion for his family. A friend, who knew the millionaire was looking for a site for his mansion, introduced a geomancer to him. The geomancer, who had just arrived from the mainland of China, was known for his feng-shui skills. Feng-shui (風水) literally means wind and water. It is a way of divination to find most auspicious places for homes or burial of the dead. The Chinese believe if the dead are interred in such places, their offspring would become more prosperous. If buried in wrong places, the deceased would make their descendants suffer. If a house is built in an auspicious place, its occupants will prosper; but they will suffer, living in a place divined as evil.

The geomancer was retained, of course. He searched for the best place for the rich merchant's planned mansion. After months of intensive search, he found a very auspicious site for the millionaire. It was in the wilderness quite far away from Banka. Taipei had yet to be walled in and the land the geomancer found cost almost next to nothing. But he divined it as a “den of the raven to lay eggs.” In feng-shui geomancy, an auspicious place is called xue (穴) or den. A long-xue (龍穴) or the dragon's den, for instance, is considered the most auspicious place for interment of the dead, whose offspring were predestined to be kings or emperors. Feng-shui geomancy, incidentally, is still very popular in Taiwan as well as in China.

The millionaire was told if the mansion was erected in that den of ravens, he would become a multimillionaire in no time, capable of enjoying feasts with gold tableware every day. “You would take meals with gold chopsticks and gold spoons to pick food from gold bowls and gold dishes,” the geomancer promised the happy merchant. In a few months' time, a grand mansion was built. Its garden was fenced. Katsura trees were planted all around. Katsura is a deciduous tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) of the order of Renales that has short spurs on its branches, broadly ovate leaves with crenate-serrate margins, and fruit which is a pod enclosing many winged seeds and that is sometimes cultivated as an ornament especially for its dark blue-green foliage which turns bright yellow or red in autumn. People called the Zhou home the Katsura Flower Mansion.

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