Middle States Geographer, 1999,32: 71-77

WESTERN RESPONSES TO FENG SHUI

James E. Mills
DepartmentofGeography
SUNYCollegeat Oneonta
Oneonta, NY 13820
ABSTRACT: Feng shui is a practice that has affected the development of traditional cultural landscapes in
East Asia. It arises out of Chinese concepts regarding yin-yang theory and qi energy. Western reactions to the
practice of feng shui have varied. In the nineteenth century, the general response was negative, and Westerners
described the practice as superstitious, irrational, and unprogressive. In the early part of the twentieth century the
few accounts that dealt with the practice were less critical, but still portrayed the practice as irrational. Academic
studies offeng shui since the 1960's have viewed the practice as a legitimate and sophisticated aspect of traditional
culture. Such academic works have been overshadowed by thousands of popular discourses on the topic which have
appeared in the last ten years. Although much of the interest surrounding feng shui in the postmodern West seems
based on commercial possibilities, there are some significant lessons that geographers can learn from these
developments.
INTRODUCTION
Asianphilosophy and practice. The main objective in
this paperisto explore these attitudes and draw some
inferences about their significance to geographers
Fengshui is a traditional East Asianpractice
today.
based on the dynamicsofqi energy in the human and
This discussion takes on an immediacy that
natural environments of the world. Feng is the
it did not have in the past. Even twenty years ago,
Chinese term for wind, and shui isthe term for water.
any awareness offeng shui in the West was largely
Often feng shui is appended with the term di li,
limited to a few academics and East Asian
meaning geography. Feng shui has a long history
immigrants. Now, thousands ofpeople are learning
and IS responsible for many of the unique
the techniques and principles of feng shui.
characteristics of traditional landscapes in China,
Consultantsare working with well-heeledclients, and
Korea and Japan. The siting of millions ofburials,
the general public sees advertisements for feng shui
such as the Ming tombs, along with the configuration
paraphernalia and starter kits in popular publications
of traditional villages, the alignment of roads, and
and on the internet. Ironically, the main locales of
eventhe locationofmajorcities such as Seoul can be
growth are not in Beijing, Shanghai or Seoul, but in
traced to the historic application of feng shui
places like Los Angeles, London, and Long Island.
principles. Although feng shui has been studied by
The practice is becoming increasingly popular in
scholars from many disciplines, it is of particular
Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand,
interest and concern to geographers. Feng shui is
even at a time when you would be hard pressed to
about the perception of places and cultural patterns
find many people in the People's Republic of China
expressed inthe landscape.
who openly pursue the practice, Whetheror not feng
The concern here is to explore how the
shui will have an equivalent impacton the landscapes
practice of feng shui has come to be known and
ofEurope and North America as it has had in East
perceived by those in European based cultures, The
Asia remains to be seen, Nevertheless, feng shui is
basic premise is that the disparate attitudes expressed
undoubtedly a growing cultural phenomenon of the
over time by writers, practitioners, missionaries,
postmodern West, to which geographers can make
scholars, and laypersons say more about changes in
significantcontributionsand critiques.
Western culture than they do about traditional East
71
Western Responses To Feng Shui
HISTORICAL RESPONSES TO FENG
SHUI BY WESTERNERS
The rise in popularity in feng shui in the
West today is truly remarkable. It is especially
notable because many of the tenets of feng shui are
alien to Western belief systems. In fact, we do not
have to go very far in the past to find evidence that
people in Europe and North America had very
different attitudes about feng shui.
Although the basic principles of feng shui
emerged before the Han Dynasty, Western accounts
of the practice did not appear until European
imperialism opened up East Asia to merchants and
missionaries in the nineteenth century. During this
period, a number of individuals wrote diaries, letters,
and books about their experiences in East Asia.
When these individuals encountered the practice of
feng shui, their responses were generally negative.
For example, in a book entitled Everyday Life in
China, published by the Religious Tract Society In
London in 1885, Edwin Dukes writes:
.. but if anyone wishes to see to what a
howling wilderness of erratic dogmatism the
human mind can arrive. when speculation
usurps the place of science. and theories are
reverenced equally with facts. let him
endeavour to fathom even the elementary
principles of the abyss of insane vagaries.
the science of Feng Shui.... We can only
walt until Christian truths and the gospel of
a sound philosophy shall lay the axe at the
foot of this deeply-rooted tree of
superstition. and level it with all its branches
of folly and fear (Dukes 1885: 145-6).
In a different account by c.F. Gordon-Cumming.
published in Edinburgh in 1900, the author states:
..there are two superstitions so deeply
rooted in the national mind that an allusion
to these is at any time sufficient to arouse
the mob. These two ruling forces are Fear
and Reverence for the Dead and the
mysterious, undefinable Feng Shui; and it
truly seems impossible for anyone who has
not had long experience of this extraordinary
and incomprehensible race to realise the
extent to which all social and domestic life
in China is influenced by these twin forces ..
. (Gordon-Cumming 1900:233).
Gordon-Cumming, after describing the practice of
feng shui, later states:
This may appear rather a tedious digression
on a very nonsensical SUbject. but
unfortunately it is one which throughout this
empire is a living reality. and one which is
not only a bar to all scientific and material
progress. but also often involves real danger
and persecution to the promoters of
Christian work (Gordon-Cumming
1900:236).
These excerpts illustrate several key aspects
of the early Western, specifically British, attitude.
One is that feng shui was seen to be irrational and
highly superstitious. Feng shui, as far as these
observers were able to tell, was not based on any
scientific principle. It was not logically consistent.
They could discern no force that the Chinese referred
to as qi. To them, the forces involved in feng shui
were no more real than ghosts or getting good luck
from finding a four-leaf clover.
It was not simply seen as superstitious,
however. Europeans tolerated many superstitions,
including their own. Feng shui drew a sharper
rebuke. It was seen as evil and malevolent. Part of
this response could well have come from the fact that
feng shui was perceived as having little or nothing to
do with Christianity. However, formal religions such
as Buddhism and Islam, although discounted by
Westerners, did not generally receive the same
degree of criticism. Feng shui did not have an
organized theology or priesthood. These British
commentators did not even accord feng shui the
status of a religious phenomenon.
There was also a perception that feng shui
was a barrier to material progress. There are many
accounts by British commentators claiming that they
were hindered in their attempts to build roads,
railways, settlements, and mining operations in China
because of feng shui considerations (1). Protesters
stood in the way or resorted to violence if they
thought the feng shui of the area was being affected
by a construction or road building project. Many
Europeans truly believed in economic development
as a means to bettering the lives of people in East
Asia. They would certainly have found it easy to
condemn the practice if they were foiled or delayed
in their endeavors by protests based on feng shui
considerations.
72
Middle States Geographer, 1999, 32: 71-77
There is yet a third aspect of the Western
attitude displayed. There is a racist tone to the whole
discussion. To such Western observers, feng shui
was the product of the Chinese mind, a mind that was
obviously not as intelligent or sophisticated as the
British. The Chinese were stubborn and unwilling to
change. They were prone to violence. They were
"incomprehensible" and subject to mobs and riots.
Despite such initial perceptions, there were
eventually accounts that were more sympathetic to
feng shui, especially during the first half of the zo"
century. L.c. Porter, writing in the 1920's tried to
understand the practice in greater depth, and was
sincerely interested in its philosophical bases. Even
so, Porter referred to feng shui as " ... this strange
mixture of religion, magic. and attempts at science. .
(Porter 1920:838) and thought that feng shui
might be a historical relic that represented "the
earliest stages of mankind's groping after truth"
(ibid).
Joseph Needham, who wrote Science and
Civilization in China, turned his attention to feng shui
as part of his larger project. He saw feng shui not so
much as a superstition or evil practice to thwart
modern progress, but rather as a pseudo-science. The
magnetic compass was invented by the Chinese, not
for navigation and other such purposes. but for use in
determining auspicious places in the landscape. For
Needham, this innovation, and feng shui in general.
was certainl y notable, but di fficult to categorize.
Feng shui was not true science, but at least a
movement in that direction.
Whether it be Needham or earlier
commentators, we can note that feng shui, seen
through the lens of modernism, has serious
shortcomings. Feng shui's fatal flaws were that it
was irrational, unscientific, and unprogressive.
Mao Zedong and the Communists took
power in China in 1949. Whatever their differences
with mainstream political philosophy in the West, the
Communists had acquired much of the modernist
vision. In the new People's Republic of China (PRC)
feng shui, especially because it was also associated
with Confucian and Taoist principles, wealthy
landlords and the bourgeoisie, was systematically
condemned. As a result, the practice declined and
remains greatly diminished as a cultural characteristic
in the PRC today.
Feng shui did not disappear from East Asia
entirely. Feng shui remained vibrant in Korea,
Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, because of the
rapid modernization of those economies. feng shui
changed and became more restricted in practice.
People moved away from the rural areas to the
crowded cities. and as new land tenure systems and
agricultural practices changed the countryside itself,
Western education and ideas also become more
prevalent. Educational systems and businesses
became increasingly tied into global networks
dominated by Westerners.
One of the first accounts of feng shui based
on historical and philosophical analyses was written
by the geographer Andrew March in 1968. March's
article is a landmark in Western perception of feng
shui. It is particularly notable that March's article
paints the practice not as irrational, superstitious, or
naive, but as a legitimate and complex aspect of
sophisticated Asian cultures. Indeed, the title of his
article is "An Appreciation of Chinese Geornancy".
Since March's article, a number of geographers and
other scholars have added greatly to our
understanding of the practice, including Hong-Key
Yoon. a Korean who did his graduate work in
geography at Berkeley (2), Ronald Knapp (3), and
David Nemeth (4).
POSTMODERN PRACTICE OF FENG
SHUI IN THE WEST
Much of the Western interest in feng shui,
especially since the mid 1980's has been taking place
in very different arenas, and has a decidedly different
tone than that which has been expressed in academia.
The last five to ten years have witnessed an explosion
of new writings by laypersons, workshops by people
with few academic degrees, and other popular
discourses on feng shui. Much of this has been
produced in the English speaking world. but there is
also a significant amount in German, French. and
Spanish. This new body of literature and activity. or
series of texts, can be characterized in a number of
different ways.
One characteristic of this current trend is
that feng shui has been adopted along with a number
of other ideas and practices within the context of
'new age' spirituality. One of the first of the 'new
age' books to include feng shui was entitled The New
73
Western Responses To Feng Shui
View Over Atlantis by John Michell, published in
1969. In that text, Michell talked not only about feng
shui, but also about ley lines, numerology, megalithic
circles, and astrology. Michell postulated that these
were all related to each other and represented some
kind of supernatural system understood by the
ancients, but lost to the modern world.
Much of this integration and mixing with
other ideas and practices still characterizes present
day texts. For example, an organization called the
"Feng Shui Institute of America" (FSIA), recently
held a training conference at Georgia O'Keefe's
Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, which was attended by
128 people from around the country. Their report
about the conference actually had little to say about
feng shui. Instead the focus was on a variety of other
activities that took place including meditation, yoga,
working with 'transpersonal oracles', dousing, and
lectures by Richard Feather Anderson about the
'secrets of geometric life'. Their opening ceremony
started with all the participants holding candles and
forming a giant spiral. The Institute's on-line
bookstore of approximately 60 titles only contains 18
books that are specifically about feng shui. Some of
the other titles they offer include The Aromatherapy
Workbook, The Sacred Earth, The Dancing Wu u
Masters, Deep Ecology for the 21"1 Century, a
number of works by Edward Hall, and interestingly
enough, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs and the Geography of Nowhere by
James Kunstler.
A second characteristic of feng shui in the
postmodern west is that it is commercially oriented.
Of the thousands of web sites that come up with a
simple search on the internet, almost all of the
addresses indicate commercial ventures. There are
very few sites sponsored or created by educational or
non-profit organizations. Hundreds of individuals
have become feng shui consultants. The typical
advertisement indicates that for a fee, the consultant
will conduct an evaluation and recommend ways that
to improve on the feng shui of your home or
business. It has become so popular that celebrities
such as former members of the Spice Girls, Donald
Trump, and George Bush Sr. have jumped on the
bandwagon and hired individuals to evaluate their
living quarters.
Many feng shui practitioners are now
becoming masters. It is unclear how one becomes a
master feng shui practitioner, as there is no
accrediting organization. However obtained, master
status appears to give one not only the ability to
charge more for consultations, but the option of
setting up a school to teach others the practice. The
FSIA, for example, charges students $1500 to take
their correspondence course. Another option is to
write a book and add to the 180+ titles about feng
shui currently in print. There is also a great deal of
paraphernalia that can be sold. Various individuals,
private institutes, and even such mainstream
marketing firms such as the Quality Paperback Book
Club and public radio stations are selling kits that
include mirrors, decorations, and manuals used to
practice feng shui.
A prominent figure in the postmodern feng
shui is Thomas Lin Yun. In the early 1980's, Mr. Lin
Yun founded 'Black Sect Tantric Buddhism'. In
addition to drawing on diverse sources such as
Buddhism, Bon, and even new age color theory, he
has created a church and theology that includes his
own version of feng shui. Mr. Lin Yun has drawn
enough adherents and clients to his religion who in
turn contribute enough money so that he is able to
spend most of his time in great luxury, flying around
the world reportedly with a mostly female entourage
(Wellman, 1998). His church owns several
expensive mansions, such as one in the East Bay
Hills of California and the former Grace Estate on
Long Island.
A third distinctive characteristic of
postmodern feng shui is that current practice almost
entirely focuses on interior design and decorating.
Although there is an occasional mention about the
broader environment, the concern is basically on
problems of furniture placement, the location of
windows, and the layout of rooms. There is a glossy
magazine in print entitled Feng Shui for Modem
Living that claims to be the "world's biggest selling
feng shui magazine". Many of the articles, along
with most of the advertisements, directly relate to
interior design. One of the mainstays of traditional
feng shui, the siting of tombs. has virtually
disappeared from the discussion. The communal
awareness of street alignment, village layout, and
other aspects of the encompassing cultural landscape,
so characteristic of traditional feng shui in East Asia,
is absent in the isolated and privatized postmodern
feng shui of the West.
74
Middle States Geographer, 1999,32: 71-77
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
What can we learn from these developments
and what kind of critique can geographers, in
particular, add to the current discourse? First ofall,
feng shui has in the past, and continues today to be a
mirror of Western culture. The response of
nineteenth and early twentieth century observers said
much about their beliefs and values. Theirs was an
imperial world ofeconomicexploitation, science,and
enlightenment philosophy. It was also a world
infusedwith greatclassand racial distinctions.
To modernists ofthe early to mid-twentieth
century, feng shui was no longer a threat, but merely
an interesting phenomena, albeit one which did not
easily fit into the categories of thought and value.
The modernist vision, however, was still a universal
one based on science and material progress. Feng
shui was seen as a phenomenon ofthe past and the
study of which was necessarily relegated into those
soft disciplines like mythology, folklore, or even
historicaland culturalgeography.
Onceagain in the postmodern era, discourse
on feng shui reflects Western perceptions and values.
We are insecure and rootless. We pick and choose
ideas and texts from a numberof different places and
time periods because we no longer have a consensus
or tradition. In a post-fordist world of competitive
capitalism, we are increasingly concerned about our
individual well being and material success. We no
longer have complete faith that science and
technology can continue to provide us with the good
life or general prosperity. We can at least hope that
feng shui will increase our individual prosperity,
improve our love life, help us lose weight, and
improveour health.
There is more to learn about feng shui and
its potential role in the West. Geographers in
particularcan educatestudents and the general public
about positive insights that feng shui can provide. It
is not particularly negative that people use feng shui
to evaluate their homes and interiors. Many Chinese
over thecenturies have also used feng shui for similar
purposes. Yet, intraditional East Asia, feng shui was
used for much more. If feng shui was used today to
evaluate the great variety of urban and rural
landscapes of the world today, we might not only
further a greater environmental awareness, but we
could help people see fresh perspectives on
themselves in the wider social and ecological
communities. One ofthe basic messagesoffeng shui
is that people need to look at their surroundings in
great detail, including the vegetation, topography,
and watercourses. One of the other messages is that
our surroundings have both direct and indirecteffects
on our well-being. These are certainly relevant
messages.
There is one final point, and it is a key one.
Despite all of the commercialization and
charlatanism, feng shui should be regarded as a
religious phenomenon. The basis oftraditional feng
shui is that qi energy animates and flows in the
landscapesofthe world as much as itdoes inourown
bodies and thecosmic universe. Feng shui, and qi in
particular are metaphysical phenomena. As much as
we have tried in the past, and in many ways continue
to try, the ideaofqi inparticularcannotbe reduced to
scientificexplanation.
Despite the many differences in time and
space, people in East Asia practiced feng shui 500
years ago for essentially the same reason that people
in the postmodem West seek itout today. Peopleare
not simply biological beings. We are more than
members ofvarious cultures, societies and economic
networks. Ultimately, we are also religious beings.
For hundreds of years, feng shui gave people inEast
Asia a way to live in a world ofcosmic harmony and
numinous experience. People today in the West are
spirits, too, and seek to live in sacralized landscapes.
The modernist belief that positivist science is the
only legitimate way to know reality has masked this
fact or diminished its significance. People need to
live in multi-dimensional worlds. Whatever their
material aspirations might be, most practitioners in
the postmodern West also truly believe in the
spiritual value offeng shui. It is one reason that so
many other people have become clients or seek out
the practice in other ways. Geographers and other
academicsshouldtake note.
Geographers should be helping people to
understand and create sacred places and spiritual
landscapes. One of the goals of any geographical
education should be to foster a vision of places and
landscapes as they could be, not necessarily as they
are. A truly humane landscape is one that places
people with feet firmly planted in both the material
and spiritual realms. Andrew March, in a different
75
Western Responses To Feng Shui
article published in Parabola in 1978, foresaw the
developmentsofthe past few years when hewrote:
America doe, not need another sort of
fortune-telling superstition which would set
people to vying for the best house and grave
sites, guaranteed as cornucopias of love,
success, and money. But the deeper
perspectives of geomancy - the gentle
appreciation of places; the disciplined
blending of psyche and landscape; the bold
imagery of extra-human experience - are as
fresh and appropriate as ever (March
1978:34)
ENDNOTES
1)See for exampleBoxer(1968),or Potter(1973)
2) See Yoon(1982),and (1976)
3) See Knapp (1989) and (1986)
4) See Nemeth(1989) and (1981)
REFERENCES
Boxer, B. 1968. Space, Change, and Feng Shui in
Tsuen Wan's Urbanization. Journal of Asian And
African Studies 3:3 and 4. 1968E.J. Brill
Dukes, E. J. 1885. Everyday Life in China.
ReligiousTractSociety: London.
Feng Shui for Modern Living. 1:10 January 1999.
Centennial PublishingPLC. London.
Gordon-Cumming, c.F. 1900. Wanderings in
China. WilliamBlackwoodand Sons: Edinburgh.
Knapp, R. G. 1989. China's Vernacular
Architecture: House Form and Culture. University
ofHawaiiPress.
1986. China's Traditional Rural
Architecture: A Cultural Geography of the Common
House. UniversityofHawaiiPress.
March, A. 1978. The Winds, the Waters, and the
LivingQi. Parabola 3:1.
1968. An Appreciation of Chinese
Geomancy. The Journal of Asian Studies 27: 2.
Michell, J. 1983. The New View Over Atlantis.
Harperand Row.
Needham, J. 1956. Science and Civilisation in
China. Volume II: History of Scientific Thought.
Cambridgeat the UniversityPress.
Nemeth, D. 1989. The Architecture of Ideology:
Neo-Confucian Imprinting on Cheju Island, Korea.
Volume 26 University of California Publications In
Geography. UniversityofCalifornia.
__. 1981. Bright YardMapsFromCheju Island.
Landscape 25: 2.
Porter, L.c. 1920. Feng Shui, or How the Chinese
Keep inTuneWith Nature. The Chinese Recorder.
Potter,J. 1973. Wind, Water, Bones and Souls: The
Religious World of the Cantonese Peasant. In The
Chinese Way of Religion. Laurance G. Thompson,
editor. DickensonPublishing.
Wellman, L. How a Berkeley-Based Religious Sect
Sold Feng Shui to the Country. SF Weekly August
26,1998.
Wydra, N. From Candleto Internal Light. Feng Shui
Institute of America. Web Site
(http://www.windwater.com/wwpaper.html).
76
Middle States Geographer, 1999,32: 71-77
Yoon, Hong -Key. 1982. Environmental ___. Geomantic Relationships Between Nature
Determinism and Geomancy: Two Cultures, Two and Culture in Korea. Orient Culture Service's
Concepts. Geo.Iournal 6: 1. Asian Folklore and Social Life Monographs. Volume
89. Edited by Prof. Lou Tsu-Kung.
77