Orientating feng shui amid new controversy

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 not set 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 study of geomantic omens, usually in buildings and cemeteries.

"In the past 30 years, our village has experienced four droughts, but the pond has never dried up," says Zeng, a qualified feng shui master.

It is such ideas that have put Sanliao at the center of a storm of controversy. Last month, an article in Chinese magazine "People" criticized feng shui as superstitious.

Tucked away in lush green mountains, the remote village with a population of 6,000 trumpets the claim that it has 500 feng shui masters.

"Almost everyone here knows something about feng shui," Zeng told Xinhua reporters during their recent tour of the village.

Its status as the hub of China's feng shui culture is largely a result of the hard work of 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 among people in the locale.

In the course of history, 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 sight-seeing area has been established in the village to lure visitors. Top Chinese universities including Tsinghua University and Renmin University have also 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 go and choose sites for new 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 cautions, as it takes seven to eight years to qualify as a feng shui expert, and probably decades to be on a par with the famous ones.

"You have to learn so many subjects, like Yin and Yang and the characters used to indicate order in ancient China," Zeng says, adding that it is also important to tour a variety of places to learn about putting the theories into practice.

And what do locals make of people in modern China doubting feng shui?

Zeng Xianliang, 59, replies that feng shui, rather than being a superstition, is a scientific subject concerning the environment, a more topical issue now than ever before.

"To many people, mountains are just mountains and water is just water, but to us, seeing the natural environment is like reading books: we interpret them in a different way," he says.

Zeng Xianli, an official with the Sanliao sight-seeing area, advises people to come to the area to experience the local culture themselves, instead of jumping to conclusions about feng shui.