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Finding Feng Shui in a Taipei Hotel in Taiwan
Unlike many other hotels with a macabre past, the Grand Hyatt Taipei doesn't play up the morbid angle. Built on the site of a World War II Japanese prison camp where brutal executions and burials took place, you won't find poltergeists listed among the amenities. Maybe that's because the swanky hotel's 800 rooms are geared toward upscale breeze-in, breeze-out business travelers seeking nothing more than cushy carpet, a rooftop pool, shopping at the luxury mall next door, and a skyscraper view of one of the world's tallest buildings, the super-pagoda Taipei 101. After a decade of locals looking at the building askance and complaints of spectral shenanigans (even Jackie Chan reported nocturnal disturbances), the hotel hired feng shui experts to straighten out the problem through better design and blessings—with windchimes, photos of black and white vases in the rooms, and two impressive Buddhist scrolls on either side of a mirrored door in the five-story gleaming marble lobby. It's a reassuring shout-out to the spooked and superstitious (and a recognition of Taiwan's tragic past) that goes right over the head of many western guests.
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