About Feng Shui Master Paul Ng by Samantha ho
On a cold and windy night, I made my way down a residential street to meet Paul Ng, geomancer, teacher, philosopher and much more. Internationally renowned, I had no idea exactly who I would be meeting when I rang the doorbell. Ng came to greet me at the door, and behind him I saw a beautiful house and a curious cat sitting in the corridor. This, as it turned out, was the home of Paul Ng.
Ng was born in Hong Kong in the 1940s and was always interested in finding out the meaning of life and the universe. “I think that humans have a lot of secrets. There has to be a code -- the code must be hidden somewhere,” Ng told me when I asked him what sparked his interest in feng shui.
His fascination with the meaning of life and the universe started at a young age. He believes that there is a code to living. Questions such as why are some people rich, why are some people poor, why do some people live such a short life and why do some people live a longer life were all thoughts that he had. So exactly where is this code? “…This code, this code does exist; it is buried in our birthdate, time and place of birth,” Ng revealed.
From a young age, Ng showed startling intuition. There were three times in his youth that he made astonishingly precise predictions. The first time he made a prediction, his family was taking him to a friend’s birthday dinner. At the reception, when Ng took a bite out of a traditional birthday bun, he had a feeling. He turned toward his father and, regretfully, told him that his friend would not make it past the weekend. Sure enough, he passed away that Sunday.
The second time Ng made a prediction, he was watching a movie. The movie featured a very famous Hong Kong movie star (Lin Dai) at the time. After watching the movie, Ng told his mother that the star would be gone within the month. At the very peak of her career, the movie star committed suicide, as per Ng’s prediction.
The third time also involved a famous movie star (Le Di). After watching a movie featuring this male star, Ng predicted that he, too, would not be around for long. And again, the movie star committed suicide shortly after.
Ng’s fascination with gaining knowledge about life and the universe prompted him to take habitual walks to a cemetery located between his primary school and high school. There were rumours circling that the cemetery had ghosts, but that did not stop Ng. He liked to go sit in the cemetery after dinner, during twilight, when the sun was setting and the world was not completely dark yet. He enjoyed looking at the tombstones. He looked at the birthdates and death dates of the people laid there and, once again, thought about the longevity of people. Why did some people live longer than others? “Born, dead [sic], in-between. Why do I have to exist in this moment?” was something Ng wondered while sitting in the cemetery.
Quite literally, Ng fell into the world of feng shui. Before he began his career as a geomancer, Ng was employed in a corporation, living the corporate life like many of us. He immigrated to Canada in 1968 to attend the University of Ottawa for electrical engineering. In 1969, he transferred to the University of Waterloo’s computer science program, from which he graduated in 1972. Later that same year, he went and completed a Diploma of Business Administration (DBA) at the University of Toronto. Then, he began his corporate life in many a corporation. In 1985, he attended a co-worker’s house-warming party and noticed that something was not quite right. He was taking a look at her bedroom and mentioned how the bed was placed in a way that would lead to her marriage dissolving. Surprisingly, his co-worker told him it was too late, that her husband had left her one week prior. Upon hearing this exchange, Ng’s fellow partygoers became curious, asking questions and going so far as to book appointments with him. That was the year he officially started life-reading on a part-time basis.
1993 brought about Ng’s most critical career moment. That year, he ran for Member of Parliament (MP). “It was like a force told me to do it,” Ng said. As it turned out, he lost the election that year, but something new was brought to his attention. Even though the campaign was tiring and expensive, spending time with people gave him satisfaction and happiness, and allowed him to help others and do what he truly wanted to do -- “My satisfaction, happiness are among the people.” Ng realized at that moment that he belonged to the people, not to a corporation.
At the time, he was an IT director at a large corporation, with at least 100 people working under him. Without a second thought, he turned in his resignation and, with it, his back on the corporate life -- “It was like a flip, and everything changed.” From that day forward, Ng became a professional, full-time geomancer.
Feng shui requires a lot of knowledge and not everyone can do it. According to Ng, feng shui is not only full of knowledge but mathematics as well. When asked if he learned feng shui from any specific teacher, he told me, “…Teachers only teach you the basics; whether or not you can [do] is on you.” He explained to me that it is not only intuition that helps him but also his background in education. Because computer science is all about logic, he understands systems, a skill most other feng shui masters lack. He thinks about the “if…then”; he wants to stick around to see the then happen, to make sure things go the way he predicted.
Ng explains that feng shui requires three things: reading lots of books, gaining experience and following through on that experience. The books he reads are not run-of-the-mill books you can buy at your local book store. The books Ng reads are old and ancient, left behind by generations of wise men before us. “If I handed it to you, you wouldn’t know what it was saying if you didn’t have the foundation,” he said. That foundation of knowledge is something that feng shui masters need to have.
The second is experience, for one cannot succeed without it. This, then, leads to the third principle: following through on that experience. “For example, if I did A, will B appear? This is the scientific approach,” Ng said. He views feng shui as another form of science, a way to untangle the mysteries of life and the universe. And, clearly, he’s on to something: Ng is the leading feng shui master in North America, with clients spanning 66 countries and all walks of life.
Aside from being a world-renowned geomancer, Ng also teaches tai chi and qigong a couple times a week. His journey into learning qigong began in 1976. After being diagnosed with bone cancer in 1974, Ng returned to Hong Kong two years later and sought out qigong masters from the Shaolin Temple, hoping their teachings could help heal him. He was accepted as a disciple under the Shaolin Temple and surprised his teachers with his perpetual need to figure things out. “It is like a puzzle: a lot of the pieces are already there, I just don’t know how to connect [them]. But once you talk about it, I can,” Ng said. His teachers would tell him how to do ”A,” and immediately he figured out what ”B” would be. It helps that he has a habit of memorizing what he does not understand, to later look it up or research it until he does understand. He has practiced qigong for 37 years now, and tai chi for 47. His qigong classes take place at his home, where he teaches his own students as well as the public. His own students call him master and are allowed to learn undisclosed, higher-level techniques that can only be passed down once you have been accepted by the master. That is not to say his public classes learn nothing; they still learn qigong, just not the secret techniques passed down from generations of Shaolin Temple masters.
Ng’s tai chi classes are held at First Markham Place once a week. He teaches his students Yang-style tai chi, while he himself practices Chen-style. When asked why this is, he explained that Chen-style is very difficult to teach to the public, as it is meant for fighting – it is a legitimate martial art. Since most people practice tai chi in order to stay healthy and active, I can only agree that teaching a simpler and less-intense style is the best course.
Ng does not collect fees for these classes. Additionally, he opens his home twice a week to students for qigong, also free of charge. To him, this is a way of helping people -- a volunteer service.
With such a busy, globetrotting schedule, I was surprised how much time Ng still devotes to teaching these classes. He is always on the go, travelling from country to country to meet with clients. He is also the chief geomancer to various corporations in many different fields of work. It is a wonder he has any time to rest at all. “My work is my vacation,” Ng said. When I interviewed him, he had just returned home from a 10-day trip to China, during which he saw 15 clients.
With such a busy lifestyle, it is also a wonder that Ng has any time to himself. He explained that his downtime is the time he spends travelling. He does not suffer from jet lag, so he can continue as soon as he steps off the plane. When he has a moment to himself, Ng enjoys poetry and music. He is a budding poet, and he also plays the flute and composes music. “Everyone has a talent, but a lot of people don’t know how to find the talent,” Ng said. Day-to-day life has blocked it.
So not only is Paul Ng a geomancer, teacher and philosopher but he is also a poet, musician and composer. No one person has has just a single side to his or herself, and discovering the hidden sides of himself has brought another dimension to Ng’s public persona. “You need to be decisive. Catch the moment.”