Village cashes in on passion for feng shui
Print Edition
IF visitors to Sanliao in east China’s Jiangxi Province didn’t know they were in a village legendary for propagating the ancient Chinese philosophy of feng shui, they surely would on setting eyes on Zeng Pingan’s house.
It is shaped like a sleeping dog. In front lies a small pond, or “the dog’s bowl,” as it is dubbed by 63-year-old Zeng, who claims that the layout of his home guarantees perennial prosperity for his family.
The principle is that as the dog never goes hungry, neither do the Zengs. A large number of Sanliao residents hold similar beliefs in feng shui, which translates to “wind and water” and involves the study of geomantic omens.
“In the past 30 years, our village has experienced four droughts, but the pond has never dried up,” said Zeng, a qualified feng shui master.
Such ideas have put Sanliao at the center of a storm of controversy. Last month, an article in the Chinese magazine People described feng shui as nothing more than superstition.
Sanliao, however, claims to have 500 feng shui masters.
“Almost everyone here knows something about it,” Zeng said.
Its status as the hub of China’s feng shui culture is largely due to one practitioner more than 1,000 years ago.
Yang Jiupin, an imperial court official of the late Tang Dynasty (618-907), fled to Sanliao with the feng shui scripts he was in charge of amid turbulent times. What was once exclusively practised by the emperor was then popularized by Yang and passed on to local people.
Since then, the village has produced 24 guoshi, key advisors to the imperial court, according to official records.
Feng shui masters from Sanliao were even summoned by emperors to choose the construction sites for the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and the Ming Tombs in Beijing.
Today, feng shui has become the major economic impetus for Sanliao, with revenue related to the practise shoring up the small village. A sightseeing area has been established to lure visitors, while top universities including Tsinghua and Renmin have set Sanliao as a research base for their students.
According to Zeng, Sanliao’s successful feng shui masters are rarely at home, as they are frequently paid large sums to choose sites for offices along the monied eastern seaboard or for the graves of clients’ deceased family members.
But it’s not easy to reach that stage, he said, as it takes seven to eight years to qualify as a feng shui expert.
“You have to learn so many subjects, like Yin and Yang, and the characters used to indicate order in ancient China,” Zeng said.
And what do locals make of people in modern China doubting feng shui?
Zeng Xianliang, 59, said feng shui is a scientific subject.
“To many people, mountains are just mountains and water is just water, but to us, seeing the environment is like reading books: we interpret them in a different way,” he said.
Zeng Xianli, an official with the Sanliao sightseeing area, said people should visit the area to see for themselves rather then jump to conclusions.
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