Fengshui bid fans science

A Shanghai organization has postponed plans to apply to make fengshui a "municipal intangible cultural heritage" after claiming biased news coverage reignited a controversy over its merits.

　　"I was pressured to stop the application before I finished it by a leader of Shanghai Social Sciences Association right after the local newspaper, Oriental Morning Post, released the story," said Zhang Liangren, vice chairman of the Shanghai Life Esthetics Association.

　　Zhang would not reveal the name of the leader, but he said the pressure began after the Oriental Morning Post published an allegedly slanted account of his application, which he planned to submit this month.

　　"The main reason why fengshui faces opposition is because many people and government officials think it is superstitious," Zhang said.

　　Widely practised in China for thousands of years, fengshui is commonly denigrated as a superstition rather than recognized as a cultural phenomenon by local government.

　　Fengshui means "wind and water" if directly translated from Chinese. It was also called Kanyu in ancient Chinese, meaning a geomantic omen applied to a building or a piece of land.

　　Traditionally, fengshui practitioners were usually consulted before construction or renovation of a building.

　　"Fengshui is a branch of science, rather than superstition," says the application of the Shanghai Life Esthetics Association, a member organization of Shanghai Social Sciences Association.

　　"As a building and location evaluation based on geology, landform and physiognomy, it is an important part of traditional Chinese culture," said Zhang.

　　He said applications in other east Asian countries triggered their action.

　　Emphasizing the harmonious co-existence of man and environment, fengshui is a discipline of geography, architecture, ethics and prophecy based on the Daoist principle that the earth, sky and man are part of one whole, said Zhang.

　　Although the Chinese government has never banned the practice officially, fengshui is defined in Chinese contemporary dictionaries as a "superstitious belief from ancient China".

　　Opponents, ranging from ordinary people to government officials, say recognition of this 'superstition' contradicts China's current concept of scientific development.

　　But a survey on Sohu.com, one of China's major websites, showed 80 percent of 1,200 people polled supported the application, while only 16 percent thought it was too superstitious and commercialized to be listed.

　　"I will never stop. We are aiming to restore the good reputation of fengshui," Zhang said.

　　A seminar on fengshui will be held in the near future, gathering as many scholars as possible to improve the application, Zhang said.

　　The biggest obstacle to the application lay in the lack of an appropriate representative of fengshui, said Zhang Liming, director of Shanghai Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center.