A BBC interview segment (YouTube) featuring feng shui consultant Jan Cisek discussing applying feng shui to animals. Cisek describes arranging sleeping places for his cats, proposes recreating Chinese-village-style environments for monkeys at the Los Angeles Zoo to aid wellbeing and reproduction, and comments on practical issues (electromagnetic pollution) and public skepticism about feng shui.
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Studio now? No, I mean, it sounds bizarre. I mean, have you ever done it for animals?
Oh, for my cats, but not. Not in zoos.
For your cats. And what. What did you do for your cats?
I just arranged where they were sleeping so they would sleep better, basically.
Don't cats sleep anywhere?
Most of the cats. But actually they were not, actually because there was a lot of geopolitic stress in the house, I had to find the right place for them.
So this zoo in Los Angeles is not the right idea. I mean, monkeys will benefit. What sort of things will they be looking at?
Probably just recreating the natural environment that they're coming from. And, yeah, it makes sen. Absolutely.
Does it not undermine? Because obviously with anything like feng shui and alternative medicines and all those sorts of practices, people are always looking for ways to poke fun at them. You must have experienced that. Isn't this kind of risky in that sort of territory to start doing feng shui for monkeys?
No, because whatever they do to help them thrive and reproduce, and that's one of the reasons they're doing it, and also have a good relationship with China. They're coming from China. That makes a lot of sense. It's a very good political move, actually.
So we're just looking at some of these monkeys now who, I must say, pretty contented to my inexpert eye. But what sort of things could we see, perhaps to improve their living conditions there and where they eat, where their.
Sleeping quarters are and where they mate.
By the sounds of it.
I think the way they mate is one area, but I think they're going to recreate a Chinese village, a type of Chinese village that they're used to. So that's a very good idea.
So wind chimes and things like that?
I don't think so. I wouldn't use wind chimes for them. Although we don't know if we are descended from monkeys. I don't know.
Let's find out a little bit more about feng shui and how it works then, because it's something that we've all heard about by now and people have got a vague idea that it's about putting things in a room in certain places, but demystify it a bit for us.
It's very simple. It's about creating the most harmonious working and living environments. And I think the best definition comes from Winston Churchill. He said we should shape our buildings thereafter. They shape us and it makes sense. And there are certain sort of universal principles that can be used for anything. I was asked to design websites logos, perfume, even cars.
What do you mean?
Do you feel things just instinctively? I mean, what do you make of this studio?
I was going to say it's a bit like a cage, isn't it?
Direction we're facing. I mean, is this great for us?
This is actually quite good.
Coming outside, it's not so great. We've got a lot of electromagnetic pollution and other problems that.
So as long as we stay in.
Here, we're all right.
It's quite nice.
Okay.
Good to know all afternoon. Julia.
Yeah, that's really good to talk to you. Thank you very much indeed.
