Feng Shui: Genesis of Petaling Jaya (PJ)

Living Guides - Miscellaneous

Petaling Jaya (PJ) has the unique distinction of being Malaysia’s most developed city that is not a state capital. It represents a perfect example of how natural migration and the forces of supply-demand contributed to its rapid development into a full-fledged city.

There is no standard definition for what constitutes a city or what separates it from a town.

Generally, an urban centre is defined as a city for administrative, legal or historical reasons, if not for the size of its population. There are some “cities” in Malaysia that only received that distinction based on its status as a state capital, never mind the relatively small population.

There must be something special or conducive about Petaling Jaya that makes it such a vibrant and popular location. Perhaps our tour can uncover this “magic” behind Petaling Jaya’s success. But first, we have to do what the locals do: everyone calls this place “PJ”. It’s a good thing that Pudu Jail (PJ) is no more and other locations such as Pulau Jerejak (PJ) are too far away to cause confusion!

PJ started life as a satellite township for Kuala Lumpur. In the late 1940s, Kuala Lumpur experienced a migration boom. To ease the overpopulation problem, a 486-hectare section of the Petaling rubber estate was converted into a housing settlement in year 1952. It started with about 800 houses built around what is known today as PJ Old Town (or sections 1 to 3). (For Google map reference, please log on to http://maps.google.co.uk/ and search for “Kuala Lumpur”.)

Templer tactic

As then-Malaya was beset by the Communist insurgency, British High Commissioner Gerald Templer ordered the area to be fenced up, similar to the New Villages. The idea was to cut off supplies of food and information to the communist terrorists, and to protect the residents from being harassed or recruited by these insurgents.

The main access road into the Old Town from Old Klang Road is named Jalan Templer in honour of the man. It remains an important road today. It cuts across the south of modern-day PJ and connects Old Klang Road to the Federal Highway. PJ was considerably better off than new villages as the road layout was much more orderly.

It has a grid pattern, with east-west roads given even-numbered names while north-south roads were odd-numbered. Indeed, the roads here were simply called Road One, Road Two and so forth. A prefix “1/” was later added to indicate Section 1. Road One, though, was changed to Jalan Othman and Road Two became Jalan Railway (but to locals, it remains “Road Two”). The houses here were mostly bungalows, but it is not as posh as it sounds. They were merely single units of half-brick, half-wooden structures with corrugated zinc roofs.

Expansion

PJ quickly expanded northwards. By the end of year 1957, there were over 3,200 houses, 100 shops and 28 factories. By this time, the first phase of the Federal Highway was completed. The highway originally formed the northern boundary of PJ, but its presence stimulated even more rapid growth northwards. Thus contrary to popular belief, the highway did not divide PJ into two, but rather was the catalyst for what is known as PJ North today.

PJ ceased to be a part of Kuala Lumpur when the latter was annexed to become a Federal Territory in February 1972. It became a township within Selangor and was run by the Petaling Jaya Town Authority. This was later upgraded to Municipal Board (1964) and Municipal Council (1977) status before it became a city in 2006.

We will discuss more of PJ’s history as we visit various parts of the city. Section 1 is synonymous with Old Town. But first, let us look at the small pocket of houses in nearby Section 1A. This area is known to locals as “Jalan Carey”, after the small ring road that feeds the area. There are several dead-end roads or cul-de-sacs that extrude from it.

Jalan Carey – and Klang’s Carey Island – were named after Edward Valentine Carey (1865-1914) who was a pioneer in Malaya’s rubber plantation industry. Carey had been involved in coffee, cinchona and tea plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and was recruited to be a manager for the Liberian Coffee Company in Malaya.

Carey foresaw the decline of coffee prices in the commodity market due to oversupply from Brazil and persuaded his fellow planters to switch to rubber. His authority on the subject of rubber and his influence with his peers (he was the first elected chairman of the Planter’s Association in Selangor) helped make Malaya the world’s leading producer of rubber, a stature which lasted into the late 20th century. In gratitude, the government gave him an island which he named “Carey Island”.

In memory of Carey

Jalan Carey was a posthumous homage to this visionary. It is no coincidence that Bangunan Peladang, the headquarters of the National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW) is located nearby at the junction of Jalan Templer and Old Klang Road. A large number of people from the plantation industry lived here and christened the road in Carey’s honour.

However, we wonder if it did him justice. The area looks a bit run-down and it is almost inaccessible during peak hours, with the incredible congestion along Jalan Templer. Previously before the Templer flyover, there was a railway crossing that stopped traffic occasionally for cargo trains to pass.

With the introduction of the more frequent KTM Komuter service, a crossing was no longer viable. Therefore, it was a good thing that a flyover was constructed. Traffic conditions improved slightly but bottlenecks and congestion at the Old Klang Road and the Templer roundabout on both ends continue to create frustrating jams every day.

In terms of landform, there are two “mountains”, namely Gasing Hill to the north and the flyover at the west. The KTM railway line runs along the south perimeter and to the east, there is Petaling Garden but there are no access roads linking the two.

From an environology point of view, these factors are considered unconducive. Earth energy comes from high land and flows to low land. As it travels along the earth’s surface, it moves rather quickly and is strong enough to overwhelm the inhabitants of homes that face this oncoming energy head-on. With two “mountains” in the vicinity, that means houses that face north and west are buffeted by this oncoming energy.

Cul-de-sac cut-off

Cul-de-sacs do not allow the circulation of human energy created by through traffic. They are very private and traffic is limited, causing the energy here to lose its vibrancy and stagnate. The closer a property is to the end of the road, the more stagnant it becomes. So, we have a combination of strong oncoming energy and a lack of circulation – think of the Dead Sea, fed by many streams and yet does not circulate on its own. To compound these problems, there is the close proximity of the railway.

Trains have a powerful impact on their surroundings due to the turbulence they create. Earth energy is carried away and dispersed by strong winds. As a train approaches, it pushes and compresses the air in front of it, like an air cannon. It delivers quite a punch and a long one at that, based on the number of carriages pulled by the locomotive. As it passes, it displaces air and creates a vacuum which sucks in air from the sides. Again the turbulence unsettles the surrounding energy pools.

Relatively speaking, the only “good” orientation would be to directly face the tracks. This orientation treats the tracks as if they were rivers, similar to how we consider roads to be like rivers. Instead of water, we have locomotives and automotives running down the paths. Make no mistake, though. They are not all the same: a river flows in only one direction – cars and trains go in both directions.

Overall, Jalan Carey is likely to remain as lacklustre as it has been all these decades. It may even deteriorate as all aging properties do unless the entire area is redeveloped and given a new lease of life. In any case, south would be the best orientation in an overall so-so area.

Next, we will explore Old Town.

You can e-mail questions on Feng Shui and properties to Prof David Koh at davidkoh618@yahoo.com. This series on Feng Shui and real estate appears courtesy of the Malaysia Institute of Geomancy Sciences (MINGS). Koh is the founder of MINGS and has been a Feng Shui master and teacher for the past 36 years.