Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (32 page)

It’s been a while since we’ve written about
Feng Shui
, the traditional Chinese art of arranging living spaces and the objects within them. Here are some new tips on how you can apply Feng Shui principles to the most important room in your house
.

F
ENG SHUI 101
Feng Shui
(“wind” and “water”) refers to the natural forces that Chinese culture credits with bringing good luck, prosperity, and even good health when the life-force energy, called
ch’i
, is flowing properly. They’re also said to bring bad luck, poverty, and sickness when the forces are blocked, disrupted, or dissipated in a poorly designed, poorly organized home or workplace.

Having good Feng Shui in the bathroom may seem frivolous or silly to westerners, but it’s taken quite seriously in China because so many personal health and sanitation needs are centered in the bathroom. Even if you aren’t familiar with Feng Shui (or you don’t believe in it), it can still be fun to see how your commode stacks up.

• Your bathroom should not be visible from the front door of your home. This is thought to be bad for your health and the health of your guests as well.

• Your bathroom shouldn’t be located at the end of a long hallway, either. This placement can cause the
ch’i
to flow right out of the house, almost as if it were being poured down a drainpipe instead of circulating smoothly through the rooms. Using such a bathroom, Feng Shui adherents say, is like sitting in the middle of a very swift current. And like the bathroom that can be seen from the front door, it can be harmful to your health…and even your pocketbook, since disrupting the proper flow of
ch’i
can cause money to flow out of your house right along with your health.

• Wherever your bathroom is located, the toilet should never sit directly opposite the bathroom door. It should be off to one side or the other, so that it’s not the first thing you see when you look inside the bathroom.

If you do have a toilet that’s directly opposite the bathroom door in a bathroom down a long hallway that can be seen from the front door, take heart: You don’t have to tear down your house or move away before your bathroom bankrupts or kills you. All you need to do is put up some mirrors. Mirrors are the duct tape of the Feng Shui world: They can fix just about anything. Their reflective power is said to pull good forces into the house and break up bad or stagnant Feng Shui. They can even push bad spirits out of the house.

• If your bathroom can be seen from the front door, simply keeping the door closed and hanging a mirror on the outside of the door is enough to fix the problem. For a bathroom at the end of a long hallway, a mobile, a wind chime, or a beaded curtain in front of the door will provide extra protection.

• Always be careful to hang mirrors in such a way that even the tallest person in the family can see the top of their head when looking in the mirror. If the mirror can be seen from the toilet, it must be large enough and hung so that even the tallest person can see his entire head while standing near or sitting on the toilet. Any member of the household whose head is even partially cut off when they look in the mirror will suffer from frequent headaches.

• Mirrors that break up or distort an image, such as mirrored tiles, should not be used in the bathroom, for the same reason.

• Placing mirrors on opposite walls so that they create an “infinity” effect can cause ch’i to dissipate and should be avoided.

Plants are considered a source of ch’i and can have either a positive or a negative influence on your bathroom’s Feng Shui, depending on where they are placed. They can disrupt the flow of ch’i if they are placed in the middle of the bathroom. But when placed in a corner, they can work wonders, breaking up pockets of stagnant ch’i and causing it to circulate through the house. If you have a corner that protrudes into the bathroom, placing a plant in front of the corner will soften its edges and prevent it from damaging the ch’i of people who use the bathroom.

For more fascinating Feng Shui facts, turn to Page 361
.

Amusement parks are a billion-dollar industry. The success of Disney World or Six Flags makes would-be entrepreneurs drool, but it’s not so easy to get a theme park built. Here are some theme parks that were never even
constructed.

T
HEME PARK
: Veda Land
BIG IDEA
: Attractions based on Transcendental Meditation

STORY
: In the 1970s, illusionist Doug Henning revived the magic show as a popular form of entertainment and starred in an NBC television special called
Doug Henning’s World of Magic
, which was seen by 50 million viewers. Also popular in the late 1970s: Transcendental Meditation, a Hinduism-based practice that claims to bring relaxation and inner peace to its followers. Henning was an avid follower of TM and became convinced that his life’s mission was to spread the practice. So he began work on a TM-based theme park called Veda Land. Using “astonishing visual and sensory effects, state-of-the-art 3D imagery, and ultra-high-tech entertainment technology,” the park would look like an authentic Himalayan mountain village. Proposed attractions included rides based on “the deepest secrets of the universe,” a building that seemingly levitated over a lake, and a simulation of life inside a flower. After he was unable to buy land in India or near Orlando, Florida, Henning bought 700 acres near Niagara Falls, Ontario, and set about trying to raise the money he needed to build Veda Land—an astounding $1 billion. He never succeeded. When he died of cancer in 2000 at age 52, he’d been trying to get the project going for nearly 15 years.

THEME PARK
: Majestic Kingdom

BIG IDEA
: Rides centered around Michael Jackson’s hit songs

STORY
: In a move to increase tourism in 1998, the city of Detroit solicited applications for the rights to build a casino. Don Barden, owner of a local cable company, applied, but he wanted to build more than just a casino. He and his business partner, pop star Michael Jackson, wanted to build a sprawling theme park called Majestic Kingdom featuring a casino, a hotel, restaurants,
nightclubs, and the Michael Jackson Thriller Theme Park. The centerpiece would be a roller coaster enclosed in a weatherproof glass bubble, allowing for year-round use. Despite promising 6,000 new jobs, the project was deemed too large and the Detroit City Council denied Barden’s casino license, ending plans for the entire operation. But Jackson didn’t give up—in 2006 he announced he was trying to raise $600 million to build a leprechaun-themed amusement park in Ireland.

THEME PARK
: Dracula Land

BIG IDEA
: Disneyland, but with vampires

STORY
: In 2001 the Romanian Ministry of Tourism proposed opening a theme park based upon Romania’s most famous historical figure: Vlad the Impaler, the murderous lord who served as the inspiration for Count Dracula. At a cost of $35 million, the park would be built in the Transylvanian village of Sighisoara, where Vlad was born in 1431. The ministry drew up plans for attractions, including underground tunnels, castles, fake caves full of live bats, a replica medieval town, a demonstration of how Vlad cut people’s heads off, an “International Dracula Center,” and a golf course. Despite the allure of 3,000 new jobs, Sighisoara fought the construction of the park. Led by a local minister, the townspeople claimed that glamorizing Vlad, who is believed to have killed more than 80,000 people, was “an attack on Christian values.”

THEME PARK
: Disney’s America

BIG IDEA
: An American history-themed amusement park

STORY
: In 1993 Disney announced plans to open Disney’s America in Haymarket, Virginia. Like other Disney parks, it would be split into different areas: Native American Village, Civil War Fort, Ellis Island, State Fair, and Family Farm. Individual attractions included a recreation of the Battle of the
Monitor
and the
Merrimack
, and a roller coaster called the Industrial Revolution. But the park’s designers had a hard time striking a balance between thrill rides and educational exhibits, and local residents argued that the park was a crass commercial endeavor that tarnished the history it claimed to celebrate. Another problem: Disney wanted to build the park on—and thereby destroy—Civil War battlefields. Bowing to the pressure, in 1994 Disney scrapped plans to build the park.

Have you been collecting the state quarters? Here’s what’s on the backs of all of them
.

B
ACKGROUND
In 1999 the United States Mint began its nine-year plan to release 50 commemorative quarters, one for each of the states. The quarters had two purposes: to celebrate American history at the dawn of the 21st century, and to generate new interest in coin collecting. The quarters were released, one every few months, between January 1999 and fall 2008, beginning with the 13 original states, and then according to the order in which the states entered the Union. Each state decided what would go on the back of its quarter, be it a local monument, state icon, historical event, or important figure. Here’s what they chose, in order of their release.

• Delaware.
A portrait of Caesar Rodney on horseback. A delegate to the Continental Congress, Rodney rode 80 miles to Philadelphia in a thunderstorm (while suffering from asthma and cancer) to cast the deciding vote that made the colonies send the Declaration of Independence to England.

• Pennsylvania.
Commonwealth
, the statue atop the state capitol building. Her right arm extends as a gesture of kindness and her left hand holds a ribbon to symbolize justice.

• New Jersey.
A rendering of Emmanuel Leutze’s 1851 painting
Washington Crossing the Delaware
. In 1776 Washington and his troops crossed that icy New Jersey river to surprise (and defeat) British troops stationed in Trenton.

• Georgia.
The live oak (the state tree) and the Georgia peach (the state fruit).

• Connecticut.
In 1687 King James II of England revoked the state’s charter. A colonist hid it for safekeeping in the hollow of a giant oak tree, now known as the Charter Oak, which adorns the coin.

• Massachusetts.
The Minuteman
, a statue commemorating Revolutionary War soldiers in Minuteman National Historic Park in Concord.

• Maryland.
The dome of the Maryland State House, built in 1772 and still used by the state legislature. The United States Congress met there from 1783 to 1784.

• South Carolina.
The yellow jessamine (state flower), the palmetto (state tree), and the Carolina wren (state bird).

• New Hampshire.
The state emblem, a rock formation on Cannon Mountain called the Old Man of the Mountain. Until it collapsed in 2003, it looked like an old man’s face.

• Virginia.
The three ships—the
Susan Constant
,
Godspeed
, and
Discovery
—that in 1607 brought the first settlers to Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

• New York.
The Statue of Liberty.

• North Carolina.
A rendering of the Wright brothers’ first airplane flight in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

• Rhode Island.
A sailboat (representing the state’s most popular sport) on Narragansett Bay.

• Vermont.
A man tapping trees to get raw maple syrup, with Camel’s Hump Mountain in the background.

• Kentucky.
The state is known for horse racing, so a horse is shown. (Ironically, it’s a Thoroughbred, not a Quarter Horse.)

• Tennessee.
The state’s musical heritage is depicted with a fiddle to represent Appalachian music, a trumpet for the blues, and a guitar for country music.

• Ohio.
With the caption “the Birthplace of Aviation Pioneers,” an early wooden airplane (the Wright brothers were born in Ohio) and an astronaut in full space suit (Neil Armstrong and John Glenn are both from Ohio).

• Louisiana.
An outline of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase (it doubled the size of the United States), the state bird (the pelican), and a trumpet (to represent the state as the birthplace of jazz).

• Indiana.
A race car, as Indiana is home to the Indianapolis 500.

• Mississippi.
The state flower, the magnolia.

• Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln, who grew up and practiced law in the state.

• Alabama.
A portrait of native Helen Keller sitting in a chair, reading a braille book.

• Maine.
Pemaquid Point lighthouse (built in 1826) guiding a ship safely into harbor.