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Day 6 : Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Feng Shui |
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24 April 2006 (Day 6)
Today’s Yang House Feng Shui required a 6.30am wake-up call but it was certainly worth it. An Hui is a city that has great Feng Shui significance - it was here that the first Feng Shui luopan was created and many Feng Shui classics were written by early masters in this famous old city.
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The idea behind the visit was not only to give students a break from Yin House Feng Shui and to do some Yang House Feng Shui, but also, to expose students to large-scale audits and get some intellectual juices going, figuring out how Feng Shui was undertaken in ancient times, without many of the ‘modern’ formulas. An Hui is particularly illustrative of how Feng Shui was practiced, from its earliest times, because many Feng Shui classics were actually written based on area in An Hui.
Hong Chuan is an 800 year old city that survived through the tumultuous times of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. These days of course, it is more well known as the location for Ang Lee’s famous Wu Xia film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (no Feng Shui significance there!). It is known for being the birthplace of many famous imperial officers and successful merchants.
Veterans of the Excursion series will know that the minute the local guide starts talking Feng Shui, it’s time to put your skeptics hat on. The local guide explained that the city’s Feng Shui can be traced to the fact that is looks like an Ox from the sky - the pond at the front is the Ox’s stomach while the pond in the center was the Ox’s second stomach. The canal that connected the two was the Ox’s intestines. What Feng Shui significance that offers is not clear but the moral of the story certainly is: tour guide Feng Shui is for entertainment purposes only. Professional Feng Shui students should trust their knowledge and look at the real reasons - the mountains and water formations and locations, as well as the surrounding landform.
The most prominent formation in Hong Chuan is the beautiful Pen Holder mountain, which acts as the rising mountain in the vicinity of this city. The Table Mountain has a special formation that works together with the embracing mountains to give this village its outstanding ability to produce officials and merchants.
We checked the Feng Shui of the Academic Hall, the City Hall as well as 3 houses in this city. In each, students found it to be planned in accordance to San He Feng Shui and in tandem with the surrounding mountain and water formations.
Of course, while the Feng Shui of the city is good, but not everyone is successful. What is the reason? There were still plenty of impoverish people about, which doesn’t seem to make sense given the very superior Feng Shui of the city. The reason for their poverty is quite obvious upon inspection of their properties - the less successful were usually living in houses built with the ‘water ways’ directly outside their house. Some students initially figured this was the ‘secret water dragon feng shui’, but now know that it was in fact ‘cutting feet water’. The ‘drain building water dragon’ concept is very dangerous.
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The house of the richest man in this town DOES NOT have the ‘water dragon. It’s one of the few houses that is located away from the cutting feet water and taps to the external Huge Door, Pen Holder and Tan Lang mountains. The mountains are also all located in the right direction in relation to the house, while the triple Bright Hall formation has doors located in correct Xuan Kong Da Gua formation. As Joey made clear to the students during the post-audit session,
once the door and external formation is right, there’s no need to be too concerned with the internal layout of the home.
The rich man has a few wives and several concubines living under one roof. Students who tried to figure out the Feng Shui using the life gua and personal directions later learned that when the family is huge, there’s no way to achieve a house that fits every life gua or for that matter, make use of the house gua method. The Big Picture must be considered. Could have a house that fits to all the life gua or even house gua, one needs to look at the BIG PICTURE.
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After a quick lunch of village home cooked food, a bonus session was in store for the students. Joey managed to persuade a local to take them to the graveyard of the Hong family. This of course required a bit of physical exercise but what a great way to work off lunch! The hill at the back of the village was the location of the Hong family burial ground. It was an excellent opportunity for students to get a complete picture - from Yang to Yin - of the Feng Shui of the area. The burial grounds are superbly located, with a beautiful embrace, correct table mountain and spiral city formation. The tomb itself was a sterling example of Yin House Feng Shui properly applied with an excellent Cicada Wings formation, and the gravestone positioned to tap into the seated Tan Lang Formation, giving the descendants status and wealth luck.
Xi Di Village - Chasing the Water Mouth
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Xi Di Village is quite off the beaten track and is not a popular or common tourist destination. Naturally, since most regular tourists would not know its significance. However, many imperial officers (950 years worth) and modern day successful businessmen in Beijing, Shanghai and HangZhou can trace their descendants and ancestors to this village.
The objective here for students was to figure out the Feng Shui of the village and try to understand why this village was able to consistently produce such a large number of high officials and outstanding entrepreneurs. The goal was to figure out the Yang Feng Shui and then co-relate it to the principles enumerated in the ancient classics during the corresponding period.
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The key to appreciating the Feng Shui of Xi Di Village lies in examining the Qi Mouth so that’s what we did. We trekked along the water way until we reached the Qi Mouth. Students were then able to observe first hand, no only where Qi that feeds the village originates from (a true and proper Qi Mouth) but how it is ‘locked’ by the external mountains in the environment, hence ensuring the prosperity of the village for 950 years. The special embracing water formation, the entrance of the village and the main city hall, as well as certain houses of notable officers, were all strategically located to tap into the formations in the area. By studying a village, locating the Qi mouth and learning how to use the mountains to lock in the Qi, students are able to plan communities and deploy Feng Shui for macro projects like resorts (after all, being asked to design a village is probably a rarity in this modern day and age!)
Xi Di Village offered an important lesson to those who were going on an Excursion for the first time. It exposed them to the fallacy of using Flying Stars Feng Shui, not only for large scale projects, but for long-term Feng Shui. For the Feng Shui of a village to last 950 years, mere Flying Stars Feng Shui is not enough - the principles of San He are instead what comes into play.
At the end of all the hard work, there was time for a little souvenir shopping at An Hui Old Street, before everyone proceeded to dinner.
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