Ancient wisdom of feng shui

Updated: 2013-01-09 17:31

(chinadaily.com.cn)

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Widely practiced in China for thousands of years, feng shui has declined in recent years but still exists.

In a classroom at Peking University School of Economics, dozens of business people were taking a feng shui class as part of their executive MBA program.

Qi Yingjie, the lecturer of the class, calls himself a feng shui master. Since 1995, Qi has been running a company offering feng shui services. Most of his clients are business elites, according to Qi.

Traditionally, feng shui is used before construction or renovation of rooms and buildings.

People who believe in feng shui believe that the location and decoration of buildings and tombs can create luck for the occupant's life and descendants.

Tang Zhijun, 47, general manager of Beijing Changfeng Innovation Science and Technology Co Ltd, said he has some business friends from southern parts of China and deeply believes in feng shui.

For many people, feng shui has been more often seen as a part of traditional Chinese culture.

Master Yancan is the abbot of Shuiyue Temple in Cangzhou, Hebei province. Known for his easygoing personality and lively sense of humor, he has more than 4 million followers on Sina Weibo.

Zhang Xuedong, a feng shui researcher and lecturer at Tsinghua University's EMBA program, said Chinese people haven't learnt how to deal with the pressure of having large fortunes and feng shui, as part of the ancient Chinese culture, gives easy solutions.

"If moving your tables and having a fish tank would help you to make more money, everybody would give it a try," he said.

However, it might not be wise to ask the so called feng shui masters for business advice.

He said, based on the ancient Chinese philosophy feng shui, does contain some old wisdom and it should be researched and protected as a heritage of traditional culture and folklore. But it shouldn't be a standard of behaviour.