Blog5)-"Ms Ivy Chan"-"Wang Kexin"-"Fengshui"

The news “Nanjing University opened fengshui course” caused serious public attention in 2005, though it had been claimed later that this course was opened by retired professors of the Nanjing University and had no legal certificate, this news still set out a heated discussion about whether fengshui is a feudalistic superstition.

   Fengshui, a traditional Chinese theory about the location of houses and cemeteries, believes that the location relates to luck and human’s energy, even has an impact on human’s mental state. The history of fengshui could be traced back to the Warring State Period of China; and the historical records of fengshui could be found in every Chinese dynasty. However, modern culture considers fengshui as a feudalistic superstition because fengshui againsts the materialism and has no strict proofs. But does fengshui really equal to superstition? In my opinion, fengshui is a superstitious theory based on a scientific foundation.

   The reason why I said fengshui has a scientific foundation is that fengshui can be explained by science in many aspects. For example, according to fengshui, the main door of the house should not directly face kitchen, bathroom or master bedroom; because it will block good “chi” from entering the house. While the scientific explanation is that when people entering the house they will carry various germs with them and if the main door directly faces kitchen, the wind will blow those germs into kitchen and people will easily fall sick because of the germ-contaminated food. So do bathroom and master bedroom: people will feel uncomfortable and disgusted when entering a house with a bathroom straightly faced; a straightly faced master bedroom will add more danger to the master if gangsters break into the house. Apart from that, many other fengshui statements could also be explained by science. So fengshui does have its acceptable scientific foundation.

However, the ancient Chinese people could not explain those theories in a scientific way as we do today, so they invented their own way to explain these theories--- that is fengshui. The ancient people accumulated their knowledge by observing their lives and hearing experience from older generation. They summarized their useful experience and knowledge into several terms. But the point is that their little knowledge could not help them to explain their results. To explain it and make it more believable, they created their own mystic and supernatural answer--- fengshui theory. By this way, fengshui became a widely accepted theory and was passed down from father to son and eventually became a traditional Chinese culture. So fengshui is just a scientific fact covered by a superstitious surface.

In the final analysis, fengshui is a superstitious theory based on a scientific foundation. We cannot simply consider fengshui as a superstition. It has both scientific and superstitious aspects. The key to dealing with fengshui centers on selecting the essence and discarding the dross. By doing this, we can not only conserve ancient people’s intelligence gatherings and our traditional culture, but also minimize fengshui’s negative effects.