It will have happened so many times. Sometimes even in the historical centers, one may come across rusticated spelndids, stone buildings, terraces of unsettling beauty. A few yards away, reprehensible shocking pink houses. A damage to the city and an affront to the aesthetic sense.
Here, imagine a reality in which, in addition to aesthetic canons, there are a whole series of coordinates that regulate a favorable disposition of buildings, colors and objects. A precise system of rules that ensure harmony, health and luck. In other words, an ancient tradition like Feng Shui.
Feng Shui yesterday
Let's go back a little. Around 600 AD, the year in which the first transcripts of Chinese geomantic rules date back. These are not superstitious curiosities or decorative charms and one cannot understand the symbols of Feng shui if one does not enter into a minimum in Chinese thought, where every reality evokes another, be they physical or metaphysical. Feng shui codifies the optimal relationships between place, space and time in a way that is functional to the well-being of the individual.
The art has been perfected in 3000 years of application at all levels, before Mao Tze Tung forbade its use and transmission (although it appears that he himself resorted to the precepts of Feng shui) and still in China he is subject to many restrictions. Recently in Feng Shui a new glory has been reached here in the West, to the point that today the Feng Shui Masters are a highly sought-after professional figure and have diversified skills; in fact they are experts able to harmonize different environments according to the request, which ranges from those who want a Feng Shui office, a Feng Shui house, a Feng Shui bathroom.
Feng Shui today
Taoists against builders . This is how things are today in China. In practice, this happens: the builders go on with their urban projects, some of which anger the followers of Feng Shui. Until 1949 one agreed one way or another. The government's will mediated between the two poles, trying to move through an impartial criterion based on environmental damage . The government also had to deal with the practice of reimbursements, inaugurated in 1898, when the British extended their administration to the New Territories granted by the Chinese imperial government and decided to adapt to the traditions of ancient Chinese geomantic.
After 1949, the date that marks the victory of the communists in mainland China, Feng Shui does not sail in good waters and the practice of repayments lapses. Hong Kong is an exception, the city has its own legislation.
Hong Kong: treacherous Feng Shui followers
Until last year, if the Taoists declared that a road or a certain building disturbed the flow of energy (Qi), the controversy has always been resolved more or less peacefully. Then it happened that the head of a village requested a heavy compensation for the planned construction of a high-speed rail link between Hong Kong and Guangzhou . And behind the complaint there seemed to be more personal interest than genuine "energy indignation". From that moment on, the Feng Shui reimbursement mechanism was anything but transparent.
Last October, the government declared that from 2000 to date to silence the Taoist followers of Feng Shui offended and damaged by the steal development, about 9.4 million in Hong Kong dollars (1.2 million in US dollars) came out of the coffers. Alongside these heavy exits, there are doubts about the professional seriousness of Feng Shui masters who make the wheel like peacocks between one TV program and another and get to ask from 400 to 40000 local dollars to distribute energy in a flat in an apartment 55 square meters .
The urgency of a specific institution is born, an organization that regulates the practice, possibly of governmental emanation. In fact, on September 6th of last year the South China Morning Post had launched the news of a nascent Association of Feng Shui masters that should have been called "International Association of Taoist metaphysics" . We have heard nothing more, we will continue to search between web and paper to keep you informed.
Meanwhile, we channel our energies towards those genuine Feng Shui masters, sacred figures able to harmonize vibrations to improve the interaction between man and the environment. Assuming there are still, right there, in what was the cradle of Feng Shui .
to know more
- A nice dip in the reports published by the South China Morning Post (type "Feng Shui" in the search engine; you will also have news on the Chinese calendar and what awaits us in 2011 in energy and economic terms);
- Hong Kong, the city of Feng Shui. about Architecture & Travel;
