Feng shui
Feng shui (/ˈfʌŋˌʃuːi/ [2] or /ˌfʌŋˈʃweɪ/[3]), sometimes called Chinese geomancy, is a traditional practice that originated in Ancient China and claims to use energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. The term feng shui means, literally, "wind-water" (i.e., fluid). From ancient times, landscapes and bodies of water were thought to direct the flow of the universal Qi – "cosmic current" or energy – through places and structures. More broadly, feng shui includes astronomical, astrological, architectural, cosmological, geographical, and topographical dimensions.[4][5]
For other uses, see Feng shui (disambiguation).Feng shui
"wind-water"
fēngshuǐ
fēngshuǐ
ㄈㄥ ㄕㄨㄟˇ
fêng1-shui3
fongshuěi
fēngshwěi
fon平 sy上
Fung1 sui3
fung24 sui31
fùngséui or fūngséui
fung1seoi2
hong-suí
hŭng-cūi
phong thủy
風水
ฮวงจุ้ย (Huang chui)
pungsu
pungsu
p'ungsu
ふうすい
fūsui
fūsui
hûsui
ហុងស៊ុយ (hŏng sŭy)
Historically, as well as in many parts of the contemporary Chinese world, feng shui was used to choose the orientation of buildings, dwellings, and spiritually significant structures such as tombs. One scholar writes that in contemporary Western societies, however, "feng shui tends to be reduced to interior design for health and wealth. It has become increasingly visible through 'feng shui consultants' and corporate architects who charge large sums of money for their analysis, advice and design."[5]
Feng shui has been identified as both non-scientific and pseudoscientific by scientists and philosophers,[6] and it has been described as a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience.[7] It exhibits a number of classic pseudoscientific aspects, such as making claims about the functioning of the world that are not amenable to testing with the scientific method.[8]
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
The Yangshao and Hongshan cultures provide the earliest known evidence for the use of feng shui. Until the invention of the magnetic compass, feng shui relied on astronomy to find correlations between humans and the universe.[9]
In 4000 BC, the doors of dwellings in Banpo were aligned with the asterism Yingshi just after the winter solstice—this sited the homes for solar gain.[10] During the Zhou era, Yingshi was known as Ding and it was used to indicate the appropriate time to build a capital city, according to the Shijing. The late Yangshao site at Dadiwan (c. 3500–3000 BC) includes a palace-like building (F901) at its center. The building faces south and borders a large plaza. It stands on a north–south axis with another building that apparently housed communal activities. Regional communities may have used the complex. [11]
A grave at Puyang (around 4000 BC) that contains mosaics— a Chinese star map of the Dragon and Tiger asterisms and Beidou (the Big Dipper, Ladle or Bushel)— is oriented along a north–south axis.[12] The presence of both round and square shapes in the Puyang tomb, at Hongshan ceremonial centers and at the late Longshan settlement at Lutaigang,[13]
suggests that gaitian cosmography (heaven-round, earth-square) existed in Chinese society long before it appeared in the Zhoubi Suanjing.[14]
Cosmography that bears a resemblance to modern feng shui devices and formulas appears on a piece of jade unearthed at Hanshan and dated around 3000 BC. Archaeologist Li Xueqin links the design to the liuren astrolabe, zhinan zhen and luopan.[15]
Beginning with palatial structures at Erlitou,[16] all capital cities of China followed rules of feng shui for their design and layout. During the Zhou era, the Kaogong ji (Chinese: 考工記; "Manual of Crafts") codified these rules. The carpenter's manual Lu ban jing (魯班經; "Lu ban's manuscript") codified rules for builders. Graves and tombs also followed rules of feng shui from Puyang to Mawangdui and beyond. From the earliest records, the structures of the graves and dwellings seem to have followed the same rules.
Foundational concepts[edit]
Definition and classification[edit]
Feng shui views good and bad fortune as tangible elements that can be managed through predictable and consistent rules.[30] This involves the management of qi, an imagined form of cosmic "energy." In situating the local environment to maximize good qi, one can optimize their own good fortune.[4][30] Feng shui holds that one's external environment can affect one's internal state.[31] A goal of the practice is to achieve a "perfect spot", a location and an axis in time[32][1] that can help one achieve a state of shū fú (舒服) or harmony with the universe.[30]
Traditional feng shui is inherently a form of ancestor worship. Popular in farming communities for centuries, it was built on the idea that the ghosts of ancestors and other independent, intangible forces, both personal and impersonal, affected the material world, and that these forces needed to be placated through rites and suitable burial places. For a fee, a Feng shui practitioner would identify suitable locations for the living and the dead to achieve shū fú.[30] The primary underlying value was material success for the living.[33]
According to Stuart Vyse, feng shui is "a very popular superstition."[34] The PRC government has also labeled it as superstitious.[35] Feng shui is classified as a pseudoscience since it exhibits a number of classic pseudoscientific aspects such as making claims about the functioning of the world which are not amenable to testing with the scientific method.[8] It has been identified as both non-scientific and pseudoscientific by scientists and philosophers,[6] and has been described as a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience.[7]
Traditional uses of feng shui[edit]
Environmental management[edit]
Traditional feng shui was a system designed to aid rural villages from the effects of weather and natural disaster.[50] As a set of consistent rules, feng shui can facilitate collective consensus on development without the need of centralized leadership. Understanding that one's actions could damage the feng shui and fortunes of the entire village, individuals were incentivized to know these rules and carefully manage the development of their land and resources. This served to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons. When conflict did erupt during development, feng shui experts played an important role in balancing interests and enforcing orderly development.[30]
Different branches of feng shui were developed and embraced in response to differing local geographies.[50] In southern China, this often resulted in villages located on high hills safe from flooding and erosion, with pooling streams that allow for easy irrigation and drainage, fields downstream fertilized by sewage, and graves located on the highest hills far from water and on otherwise unvaluable farmland.[30] To this degree, feng shui could help communities manage their spaces to match their physical, environmental, and aesthetic needs.[50]
Conflict resolution[edit]
A core aspect of feng shui has been its understanding of polarity. As opposed to western dualism, in which concepts are completely oppositional and irreconcilable, Chinese polarity sees opposing concepts as constantly changing and inseparable. The result is an emphasis on continual compromise and balance in order to maintain harmony.[31]
Feng shui has been observed to play an important role in the mediation of rural conflict. Through its amoral explanation of differential fortunes, feng shui provides a universal set of cosmic rules communities seek to abide by. This can promote community unity while also creating numerous points of polarization. Through the hiring of feng shui experts, disputes between villagers can be peaceably resolved without losing face.[30] In addition, these impersonal cosmic rules help regulate local jealousies over wealth and prestige.[4]
Community mobilization and political protest[edit]
As early as the Tang dynasty, the Chinese state recognized the disruptive power popular expressions of feng shui had over government authority.[29] At the community level, feng shui could play an important role in community mobilization and political protest.[30] By elevating a cosmological explanations of events, feng shui allowed for the expression of otherwise impermissible political opinions.[28]
During the Boxer Rebellion, feng shui was used to justify attacks on western missionaries and colonial infrastructure. Under the perceptions of these infrastructural projects and groups were generating bad feng shui, rebels were able to incite their local communities into revolt against foreign influence.[4]
To a more civil degree, feng shui could facilitate community negotiation. During the development of the Shek Pik Reservoir, feng shui was used to rally the community against the reservoir and hinder construction. It was only after months of difficult negotiations that guaranteed of local oversight, compensation, and resettlement could construction go smoothly.[51] For many communities, feng shui is a method to extract proper deference and compensation from the government.[30]
Expression of identity[edit]
Feng shui has been described as an egocentric tradition.[4] Because of the nature of fortune, one person's gain comes at another's expense. Thus when compared to the more collectivist traditions of Confucianism, feng shui promotes social competition and the atomization of the family structure.[29] This differentiation has been particularly expressed through excellent siting and the building of bigger homes that can change the local balance of feng shui.[30][29]
Feng shui also helps promote ethnic differentiation. In Southern China, different folk traditions and beliefs guide differing interpretations of feng shui.[28] Through conflicts over burial sites, these contrasting interpretations of feng shui act as an important medium to settle interethnic disputes and define local dynamics.[30]
Criticisms[edit]
Traditional feng shui[edit]
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), one of the founding fathers of Jesuit China missions, may have been the first European to write about feng shui practices. His account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas[74] tells about feng shui masters (geologi, in Latin) studying prospective construction sites or grave sites "with reference to the head and the tail and the feet of the particular dragons which are supposed to dwell beneath that spot." As a Catholic missionary, Ricci strongly criticized the "recondite science" of geomancy along with astrology as yet another superstitio absurdissima of the heathens: "What could be more absurd than their imagining that the safety of a family, honors, and their entire existence must depend upon such trifles as a door being opened from one side or another, as rain falling into a courtyard from the right or from the left, a window opened here or there, or one roof being higher than another?"[75]
Victorian-era commentators on feng shui were generally ethnocentric, and as such skeptical and derogatory of what they knew of feng shui.[76] In 1896, at a meeting of the Educational Association of China, Rev. P. W. Pitcher railed at the "rottenness of the whole scheme of Chinese architecture," and urged fellow missionaries "to erect unabashedly Western edifices of several stories and with towering spires in order to destroy nonsense about fung-shuy."[77]