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Day 4 : Curling Elephants, Moving Mao-tains – Stepping Up the Search for Qi
Reported by Choo Li-Hsian. |
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22 April 2006 (Day 4)
Mao Zedong or Chairman Mao surely must be Hunan Province 's main export. He was born in the Hunanese village of Shaoshan , not far from Changsha (where we are based till we leave for Huangshan on the morning of Day 5). Shaoshan looms large in significance to Chinese communism as Mao's birthplace and has seen a tourist revival in the last decade. Hence it has become a national shrine, it is hardly a typical Chinese village.
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However, despite tourism's impact, it appears that the countryside has still retained much of its small town charm; its landscape being dotted with quaint houses, mountains and lush rice paddy fields. Many Chinese still revere the Chairman like God , as seen from the droves of people visiting his family or childhood home, the site of our audit on the morning of Day 4.
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Chairman Mao's childhood house is a mud-brick house with a thatched roof and stable. He was born here on the 26 of December 1893 and returned here to live briefly in 1927. It is very similar to other dwellings in China except for its former occupant, its painstaking restoration and the People's Liberation Army guard being present within its four walls to usher the crowd through the site and to maintain order.
After a short briefing by Joey, students immediately broke into their various groups to walk around, take their measurements and figure out the Feng Shui as it were. As usual, everyone was given a chance to form their own conclusions before Joey provided his thoughtful and thorough analysis of the Feng Shui in the area. Here is a fine example of the application of house gua in Yang House Feng Shui. As it is evident in this case, Mao was a West group person, living in an East group house. However, it was obvious that he was staying in and making use of the EAST group sectors of the house, which are excellent according to the House Gua.
Some students were quick to analyze that the house supports Mao's favourable element, according to his Bazi. It illustrates the importance of a synergistic match between the place and the person. In true Joey Yap's fashion, students were in stitches when he went further to highlight the special landform features in the area such as "elephant curling around the pool" formation at the back and the "metal stages formation" at the front of the house. Once again it reinforces the fact that one must be here to feel, sense and see Feng Shui and landform in order to appreciate it, understand it and most importantly, use it.
We break for a very good lunch of Hunanese food at a restaurant in the vicinity. We then move on and make our way to the tomb of Mao's father and mother, also in the vicinity, near the top of a small hill.
Here, we can see that the back and front of the tomb is sunken in and therefore is not so ideal as ghost mountains are needed so that the site is not exposed to Sha Qi (or negative Qi). Absence of these ghost mountains in this context mean s that his generational line did not last. This could very well have contributed to his brothers' bad luck (as the Qi here only supports one son – Mao) and definitely affects Mao's descendants.
For a tomb to yield immediate positive effect for the descendants, one has to ensure that the tomb faces a table mountain that one can "reach out and touch". For the tomb of Mao's parents, the gradient is too steep. Negative effect can also be inflicted immediately as well.
The 10 million dollar question then is "Did Mao attempt to use Feng Shui?" It appears, in the fashion of the many Chinese Emperors before him, that he did . As one Mastery Academy student observes, the practice of Feng Shui, especially for Mao's grandfather's tomb, surely must be "absolutely deliberate" as his grandfather's tomb is residing very high up a steep mountain face at another site not quite so far from the childhood home. The tomb is reachable only thro
ugh a long series of steps curling around the steep mountain face.
Audit by the students and review of the site reveals that red Lian Zhen star soil exists at this location. The source mountain is also a chastity star (as the red soil just denotes that it has been washed down from a mountain with such soil quality and colour).
Again Joey emphasizes that to look at how powerful a tomb is, one must look to the table mountain and not just incoming dragons. In the grandfather's tomb, a table mountain exists in the shape of a Sky Horse embrace and a Greedy Wolf star of great size, causing it to be what is termed a "seated general". There is also a north guardian star guarding the water mouth. From the site of this tomb, we can also see many interlocking water mouths, a spiral city and then a formation also known as "9 curves of water".
The downward journey to the bottom of the mountain with Mao's grandfather's tomb feels somewhat lighter. We arrive back at the hotel in the late evening to pick up some equipment before moving on to a different hotel where a meeting room had been rented for the roundup lecture (for Xian and Changsha legs) to be done.
Students share their learnings and pose further questions to Joey, who recaps the last 4 day's activities. The day ended with yet another good Hunanese dinner at a local restaurant.
Reported by Choo Li-Hsian.
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