FENG SHUI, LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE. In Treatment [TH]

Setting at the plain on my first trip to HCM city I remember that and it kind of calm down me a bit. I was a little worried about how the communication with my new colleagues will be, event ought we already had some contact by Skype.

Office © Montse.

As soon as I arrived I tried to get used quickly to the sound of this new language and to the letters combinations, so strangers to me. I tried to reed everything, starting with advertising, shop and street names or menus at the restaurants.
 

Ho Chi Minh posters. © Montse.

Little by little I found out that the bigger issues about communication had nothing to did with linguistic, instead were cultural matters. At the office, the respect they showed to foreign colleagues was a bound for communication. If there was a misunderstanding instead of trying to explain it and to try to find a solution the simply assenting which ended in a bad developed work. It came to me a frustration feeling and I loose my patient, something understandable for them.


Finally the solution came up little by little. In one hand they realize that it was nothing to be afraid or embarrassed in asking us for help or indications and secondly we learn how to communicate.

PROJECTING WITH THE FENG SHUI (Sergio Diez-Cascón Soler).
 

Fence made ​​of wicker work. Hoi An © Sergio.

Concerning work it took us a wild to get used to their mentality. We were used to the night/ day and wet/dry areas order from the CMV office in Spain. Here we had to start mixing it all up generating angle corridors, rooms with no windows and small areas for altars. We left the most minimal interior design of pure lines to give a way to one so much traditional full of alcoves, double walls with indirect lights, wood lattices, in short, anything that showed the ultimate in luxury.
Even thought, the enemy number one of these first projects, was the Fen Shui.


A lot of books have been written about Feng Shui. We had some of them at the office. Anyway the clients had their owns interpretations of it. Some put emphasis on avoiding some numbers (as instance the ones that had a 3 on it), which affected stairs, number of story-house or the interior high of a room. Other paid more attention to the beds position in relation with the door, which generated strange paths. But the big star of these first projects was the acute angle. "We must to avoid these angles that as knifes, they raise up generating a deep sense of unease caused to the aggressiveness  and tension of it's shape.

Courtyard with dining table and altar in the background. Mui Né. © Sergio.
 

TO BE CONTINUED... NEXT WEEK MORE!! > "LIFE ON THE STREET + SOCIAL REALTIONSHIPS IN HCMC (1st)"

IN TREATMENT - METALOCUS.

DIRECTOR: JOSÉ JUAN BARBA. COORDINATION: INÉS LALUETA. ORGANIZATION: INÉS LALUETA, PEDRO NAVARRO. ENGLISH VERSION: KAREN SIMPSON. GUESTS FIRST SEASON: JOSÉ JUAN BARBA, MARINA DIEZ-CASCÓN, SERGIO DIEZ-CASCÓN SOLER, LARA FERNÁNDEZ GONZÁLEZ, CARLOS GERHARD PI-SUÑER, MONTSE PLA GARCÍA-CASTANY, XAVIER NICOLAU CUYÀS, FERNANDO RIAL PONCE, VERÓNICA ROSERO.