Feng shui in the Chinese cityscape: China proper and overseas

Abstract

As the historical situation since 1949 has been radically different on the Chinese mainland and in the overseas Chinese lands of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Singapore, the respective uses of feng shui in these places shall initially be sketched separately. Much has happened in recent years, however: Hong Kong and Macau have been returned to China, and economic co-operation and integration between Taiwan and China tends to even out previous distinctions in lifestyle and culture. The great cities of eastern and southern China in particular increasingly resemble Hong Kong and Taipei in both commercial drive and architecture. Moreover, feng shui is again being integrated in the vibrant and universal Chinese urban culture along with quick business, intensive shopping, conspicuous consumption, going to temples and chatting on mobiles. CITIES IN CHINA PROPER Until just one or two decades ago, feng shui was little practised in Chinese cities. Already the modernization drive of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the foreign grip on Chinese education did much to repress common feng shui practices in the major Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xian, Wuhan and Guangzhou. Both foreign and Chinese descriptions from the early twentieth century tend to indicate that feng shui was little used and feng shui masters were marginalized. Feng shui had mostly become a rural phenomenon, associated with backwardness and superstition ( mixin ).