You may think I am drunk, or have gone mad, when I say Thailand, as a country, no longer follows feng shui, or space management in accordance with the Chinese-originated art or practice of creating harmonious surroundings that enhance the balance of yin and yang for one particular place.
We all know Thais are superstitious and one of the superstitions we strictly follow is feng shui -- we carefully choose land with water in the front and mountains at the back, not the other way around. Sometimes, we place a mirror, crystal balls or build a water feature in front of our house to induce positive energy.
The best example of this obsession with feng shui is Government House. Our prime ministers have spent huge sums of taxpayer money remodelling and landscaping the spot to attract positive energy or "good shi" in the hope it will secure stability and good luck.
When in power, ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra removed old trees at Government House, replacing them with tree species from his native North. The old brick wall was torn down and replaced with a metal fence. The spirit house was moved from the front to the back of the building. Former prime minister Surayud Chulanont brought in new, auspicious plants to bolster luck. The trees were removed by Abhisit Vejjajiva who replaced them with Java palms, whose fan-shape leaves are believed to fend off bad luck. Yingluck Shinawatra relocated the spirit house to its original spot.
We may ask ourselves: What do these feng shui "masters" know? Apparently, the tactics failed to protect those politicians (and us) from bad luck. One might wonder if our country has its own feng shui rules. If so, what did these superstitious politicians do to improve Thailand's feng shui.
In my humble opinion, every country has its own feng shui, or organising structure, and the concept of feng shui is not entirely superstitious to me. Land, environment and people are basic elements of feng shui everywhere. Our leaders, regimes and constitutions may change but our feng shui seems to be constant.
We are an agrarian country. Our geography has determined what people do to make a living and what ecological protections are needed.
Politicians have tried to alter and improve our feng shui through public policy and laws aimed at regulating certain activities and preventing these activities from disrupting the harmony between humans and their surroundings.
Modern feng shui, in this context, is more about laws that seek to regulate industrial development and determine what industries can be allowed to operate in certain parts of the country.
We saw this in state policy from the 1970s that created an industrial estate to contain and group polluting industrial activities into one area as a means to minimise their impact on the environment. Other policies have introduced land zoning regulations that ensure the right industries are in the right locations.
It is this form of feng shui that has led to the establishment of entertainment zones, factory zones, farming zones and even "sin cities". This type of modern feng shui worked quite well in helping put the right industries where they belonged.
This changed when the current military regime used powers under Section 44 of the interim constitution to bypass town planning and land zoning laws in environmentally sensitive regions. Politicians now seem to be playing around with feng shui by trying to allow polluting industries to operate in sensitive watersheds in national forests. They are also pushing to build a coal mine in a tourist area, which is lowering land and property values.
Among affected regions is the flood-prone area of tambon Chiang Rak Yai, Prathum Thani, marked to house a rubbish incineration plant despite its location about 1.5km from an environmental conservation zone used for water storage by the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority to produce tap water for Bangkok residents. So, the administration's de-feng shui policy seems set to bring bad luck to our water supply. That's just one example.
One might assume our prime minister must hate the idea of feng shui and all superstitions. Yet, for the record, when the military seized power in 2014, 300 million baht was spent redecorating and re-landscaping Government House.
It's anyone's guess if these new efforts have something to do with feng shui. Maybe not. But it is no longer important. Now Section 44 is shaping our country more than any feng shui principle.
Anchalee Kongrut writes about the environment in the Life section, Bangkok Post.