South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s push to move his office away from the sprawling Blue House complex has drawn criticism from opponents who accuse him of prioritising feng shui over cost and security. His transition team has said the presidential office needs to be moved for “better communication with the public”, emphasising that there is “zero possibility” of Yoon making use of the current one at the Blue House site. The official rationale behind the proposed move is that the Blue House compound – which is more than twice the size of the US White House complex – is too closed off from the public and evokes an emperor’s palace on a hill instead of a democratically elected president’s workplace. Yet its location has been linked by practitioners of feng shui – the traditional Chinese practice of orienting structures and the layout of living spaces to create perceived balance with the natural world by directing energy flow – to the misfortunes that have befallen some of its previous occupants. A troubled history The Blue House is located on the same site that housed the head of the colonial government of imperial Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945. Previously, the area had been used for training guards of the Choson dynasty’s (1392-1910) royal court and burying the kings’ concubines. Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president, gave the Blue House its name in 1948. He lived there throughout the Korean war (1950-53) and until his ousting by a popular uprising in 1960. His democratically elected successor Yoon Bo-seon was the next occupant, though only served briefly as president before being forced out by a coup led by army general Park Chung-hee, who was in power for nearly two decades before being assassinated by his own spy agency head in 1979. South Korea president-elect to sternly deal with North Korea, reset China ties Military generals-turned-presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were next in the Blue House. Both were later jailed for corruption and leading the coup that had brought them to power. During Kim Young-sam’s time in the Blue House from 1993-98, he oversaw the collapse of South Korea’s economy amid the 1997 Asian financial crisis. His successor, Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Kim Dae-jung, seemingly avoided the Blue House jinx – pulling the country out of the financial crisis, co-hosting the 2002 Fifa World Cup with Japan and holding the first-ever inter-Korean summit. But the following three presidents were not so fortunate. Roh Moo-hyun took his own life amid investigations into an alleged corruption case involving his wife, while Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye were both jailed for corruption and abuse of power. Feng shui Feng shui practitioners say the Blue House’s location is criss-crossed by unfavourable flows of natural energy, or chi, that bring bad luck and ill health to the people living there. When outgoing President Moon Jae-in himself sought to move his office away from the Blue House – a move that was ultimately dropped after the chosen site in Gwanghwamun proved unsuitable – bad feng shui was cited as one of reasons for the proposal. Yoon’s transition team initially identified the Seoul government complex in Gwanghwamun as the location of his new presidential office, but amid security concerns with that site they turned to the Defence Ministry compound in the capital’s Yongsan district. Feng shui practitioners depict Yongsan, which literally means dragon mountain, as an auspicious site for a seat of power because of its location between a hill and the Han River. Choi Jin, head of the Institute of Presidential Leadership think tank in Seoul, said the decision to relocate would “incur great costs and involve tremendous work”, adding “I don’t think feng shui considerations are a factor”. However, Lee Jae-oh, a senior politician and adviser to Yoon’s People Power Party, said on a radio news talk show on Thursday that “no other explanations are possible” – other than feng shui – for why the site at Yongsan was chosen over Gwanghwamun. People suspect that the [planned] move was motivated by shamans’ advice Cho Jeong-sik, Democratic Party politician Moon’s Democratic Party called the proposed move “hasty and absurd” in a statement on Thursday, and said it raised national security concerns as it was distracting the defence ministry and military at a time of heightened tensions following the North’s recent spate of missile tests. Moving the presidential office to the defence ministry’s compound, which is currently off limits to the general public, would also do little to make the president more accessible to the people, Democratic members of parliament’s national defence committee said in a statement. “People suspect that the [planned] move was motivated by shamans’ advice that the location of the Blue House is cursed,” said Democratic Party politician Cho Jeong-sik. Fellow party member Yoon Ho-joong, meanwhile, said Yongsan had a “shameful history” as occupying troops had been stationed there in the past. South Korean women throw down gauntlet to ‘anti-feminist’ president Moving South Korea’s political nerve centre away from the Blue House would also be incredibly expensive, costing billions of dollars on top of what’s already been spent building highly sophisticated command and control systems and communications networks for crisis management on site, as former opposition lawmaker Kim Jong-dae pointed out on Facebook. “The Blue House is the last citadel for national security,” Kim said. “I’ve never seen something so amateurish. [This planned move] won’t come about in any case.”