Nury Vittachi is a name that very few have heard of here in the United States. He is well known however in Hong Kong. He was born in Ceylon and lives in Hong Kong with his English wife and their three adopted Chinese children. His best-known works are the series on The Feng Shui Detective but he is also a writer of non-fiction as well as children’s books. He is noted for his role in founding the Asia Literary Review, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and was the chairman of the judges of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008. His often-satirical column in the Hong Kong papers was shut down right after the take over by China of Hong Kong. That hasn’t stopped him from publishing in other papers throughout Asia and on his website. He is a feng shui expert. Feng shui is not a fad in Hong Kong but a way of life. It is very important to the lives of the people there. There are three books that can be found here in the West in his series called The Feng Shui Detective, The Feng Shui Detective Goes West, and The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics.
The Feng Shui Detective introduces us to C.F. Wong. Wong is a feng shui practitioner who is interested in two things, money and the book he is writing on Oriental wisdom. He runs his operation from a shabby office with the “help” of the world’s worse Administrative Assistant Winnie Lim and an Australian teenager named Joyce McQuinnie. Mr. Wong and his assistant Joyce do not understand each other. He is in his late fifties and she is eighteen. He wants nothing better then to do his feng shui and get paid big bucks for it and she is interested in the nightlife. The story is set in Singapore and revolves around three cases. The first case is a haunted dentist’s office. The second case is a kidnapping of an Indian girl who is a friend of Joyce’s. The third case ties into the haunting and involves a young woman pursed by a Malaysian mystic who claims to love her but because of predictions of her imminent death has taken out multimillion dollar life insurance policies on her.
What I enjoyed most about The Feng Shui Detective is the subtle humor as East meets West and neither understanding the other. Mr. Vittachi in his books takes potshots at the music scene with his skewering of nightclubs that cater to noise rather then music. He also is not afraid to go after the tongs in Hong Kong. The influence of the tongs has waned as more and more well known people speak out and oppose them. Jackie Chan was at the forefront of breaking their hold over the movie industry. Vittachi also has fun skewering the image of Australians. I never found his humor to be cruel however and I greatly enjoyed this first book. It made me want to find more by this same writer and his detective C.F. Wong.
In The Feng Shui Detective Goes West C.F. Wong is trying a new line of business that he hopes will be prosperous. His new venture was supposed to produce a line of fruit shaped highlighters but his business partner had them filled with black ink instead. Facing a huge loss and a partner with contacts with the Chinese Mafia he is forced to take the first feng shui job that comes along. It turns out to be a huge aircraft. The story races along with competing environmental groups against big oil and big business counter groups going after each other and it is difficult to know who is on which side. A death aboard the aircraft, the arrest of Joyce’s friend who is an environmental activist, and the Royal Family all play a part in the story.
I actually liked this book even more then the first. Vittachi makes a point about the environment while at the same time skewering the extremists on both sides of the question. His take on the Royal Family is humorous but not exactly respectful. You get a little more background on Wong and his life in China and he comes across as more human. His history comes up with a solution for a crippled plane that needs to land.
The third book in the series is The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics. While the book does have some of the same breezy humor as the other two books there is an under current of seriousness here. The story concerns kidnapping, vegetarians, exotic food, and terrorism all at the same time. C.F. Wong has opened a branch of his feng shui business in Shanghai. He immediately is a victim of Chinese government bureaucracy. His assistant Joyce McQuinnie has become a vegetarian and has a second job at a local vegetarian café. They innocently become involved with a group that is on the extremist end of animal rights. The group invades a dinner and kidnaps the people who were at an extreme eating event featuring live food including Wong and McQuinnie. The story rockets along with escapes, trying to rescue a kidnapped child, a rare white elephant that is literally a bomb waiting to go off, plots against the President of China and the United States who is visiting China, crosses, double crosses, and more.
While you have to suspend disbelief in a couple of areas the book in a fascinating read. You understand why the Chinese Government is leery of Vittachi’s writing. He skewers the bureaucracy that ties everything up. He also goes after the extreme eating fad that is prevalent in Hong Kong. He shows how well meaning people can be duped by people with hidden agendas. He also touches on ethnic cleansing that is part of the Chinese Government’s method of operation in places like Tibet and Mongolia. At times the book has an almost Zen like feel to it.
I heartily recommend these books. I will be on the look out of more in this series. I like the characters and feel that they are well drawn. The humor is subtle. Vittachi uses his subtle humor to make a larger point in his observations of the world. The books have frequent writings on Chinese philosophy in the form of parables in the book being written by Wong called Some Gleanings of Oriental Wisdom by C.F. Wong. This gives the book a Taoist or Zen slant. The books are entertaining and thought provoking at the same time.