You can't Imagine How Important Feng Shui is to Americans
Feng Shui is more than just a buzzword; it’s becoming a practical tool for many Americans navigating the stresses of modern life. As our homes and workspaces grow chaotic, people seek ways to restore balance and peace. From strategic furniture arrangements to mindful decor choices, Feng Shui offers effective solutions to enhance our environments. It’s not just about aesthetics—it’s about creating spaces that support our well-being. Let’s explore how this ancient practice is finding its place in contemporary American life.
- The Silent Chinese Feng Shui
- Feng Shui is a fascination for Americans
- How Feng Shui Works in the Business World
- Feng Shui in the Academic World
- Feng Shui for Celebrities
1. The Silent Chinese Feng Shui
In the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, Feng Shui and the I Ching were regarded as feudal dregs and were thrown into the garbage dump by the government. The Feng Shui industry was greatly suppressed. The Chinese government does not allow Feng Shui and metaphysics to be promoted as a mainstream ideology.
It was not until the 1980s that Feng Shui was brought back to the forefront by academic circles such as architecture, geography, and archeology. In addition, businessmen from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan who believed in Feng Shui came to the mainland to do business. Feng Shui re-entered the public eye and quickly took root in China.
However, the Feng Shui industry still only exists in a small area. Most ordinary people believe that Feng Shui metaphysics is an elusive and mysterious industry that is unreal, unreliable, and a form of feudal superstition.
Moreover, there are many schools of Feng Shui in China, with hundreds of schools, and no unified norms. They rely on secret methods passed down from their ancestors. Like Western philosophy, it is generally divided into rationalism and empiricism .
In recent years, real estate has been the hottest investment in China. Some wealthy people have begun to pay attention to the Feng Shui of houses when choosing locations or houses, but this is still an individual case and not a necessity. Finding a reliable Feng Shui master still relies on traditional word of mouth.
The No. 1 Feng Shui Village in China is Sanliao Village in Jiangxi Province . 80% of the people there make a living from Feng Shui. They have been doing Feng Shui reading for officials, business owners, and celebrities for a long time. The villagers are scattered all over the country and go home every year carrying sacks of money. As they say, Feng Shui reading is much better than farming .
China's three largest Internet companies, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, looking at their fortune charts, you will find out why Baidu is declining. This is because only by facing the water can you gain wealth (facing water means wealth), and Baidu's headquarters is in Beijing, where there is no water facing the head. On the other hand, Alibaba borrows the water from the West Lake, and Tencent borrows the power of Zhuhai to attract countless wealth.
The same is true around the world. The Disney Group has been making losses for years. When building Shanghai Disneyland, they designed Disney's Wishing Star Lake into the shape of an elephant. Chinese Feng Shui also regards elephants as a symbol of good luck, and the elephant's trunk attracts water and wealth, so the elephant's trunk was pointed toward the Hangzhou Bay and the Yellow Sea to attract money. Since its opening, Shanghai Disneyland still has the longest queues in the world.
2. Feng Shui is a Fascination for Americans
When it comes to the Feng Shui techniques of the Five Elements, stepping on dragons to find caves, Xuan Kong, Sanhe, Eight Houses, and Luan Tou Li Qi, many Chinese people sneer at them and think they are pseudoscience. Young people's understanding of Feng Shui is limited to novels and movies such as "Ghost Blows Out the Light" and "Grave Robbers' Chronicles". Feng Shui masters are generally considered to be charlatans who are not doing their jobs and are talking nonsense.
But what is incredible to the Chinese is that Chinese Feng Shui has flourished in the United States and is enthusiastically sought after by Americans.
In the eyes of Americans, Feng Shui is a cosmic energy technique that has been passed down in China for more than 5,000 years and has its own aura of awesomeness . They believe that Chinese metaphysics is the most awesome and mysterious thing in the world, and it is so awesome that there is nothing to say.
The comfort given by Catholicism and Christianity is becoming increasingly limited. In order to seek new beliefs, the empty, lonely and cold Westerners began to pursue the mysterious metaphysics of the East, such as Feng Shui. In their cognition, the profound and mysterious Feng Shui techniques contain strong religious attributes on the basis of metaphysics.
In the United States, Feng Shui masters have their own teams. They promote themselves on television, radio, books and magazines. Their business cards are printed with glittering golden titles - Feng Shui Experts, which are sacred and inviolable.
Many times, the decision-making power for large buildings, celebrity tombs, wealthy mansions, site selection for real estate developers, etc. lies in their hands.
Feng Shui is an environmental philosophy of site selection and layout. It teaches people how to choose and create an auspicious and suitable environment, and to emphasize harmony and peace to achieve a living atmosphere. It is deeply trusted by Europeans and Americans who value freedom and self-perception. They firmly believe that Feng Shui can affect luck, emotions, mentality and health, and firmly believe that Feng Shui is full of cosmic energy and can make people happy and full of happiness.
Each type of bead in a Feng Shui bracelet needs to be cleverly combined to achieve the best Feng Shui effect, otherwise it may be counterproductive. For example, the Moss Agate Bracelet below, the strong energy of moss agate needs to be counteracted by the restraint of copper to achieve the best Feng Shui effect of both.
Architects and designers are most annoyed by feng shui experts. As long as the owner invites a feng shui expert to take a look, it will be troublesome because the design plan will definitely have to be changed, and the changes will be major.
For example, if you want to change the restaurant into an octagonal shape like the Bagua formation, the number of stairs must be an odd number, and the decoration workers have to dismantle and reinstall halfway through the installation...
The owners will almost 100% adopt the suggestions put forward by the Feng Shui masters. In the eyes of the owners, they are the supreme gods of the universe.
Interior designers have also begun to incorporate Feng Shui elements into their designs to meet public demand.
Young people in Europe and the United States have begun to use Feng Shui to find love, and it has become a new fashion.
Newspapers and magazines teach single men and women who are longing for love to use the horoscope to find the peach blossom position in the house, place a pink shell, or put pink roses to form a peach blossom formation, which can absorb cosmic energy to increase their love luck and find them a partner. Or they can buy a bracelet or bracelet that can attract peach blossoms (love) to reverse their love fortune.
Not to mention, some people actually found their other half through this. However, some people are very devout and insist on moving their cabinets by one centimeter at midnight every Sunday, tying a blue ribbon on their cars, sprinkling a handful of salt in their cars, etc., believing that this will bring them good luck. Germany, which is known for its rigidity and rigor, also believes in Feng Shui. There are hundreds of Feng Shui associations alone. Feng Shui supermarkets in Germany have more than 5,000 products.
Feng Shui masters in Europe and America advise people:
- When parking, keep the front of the car facing outwards to keep your mood calm;
- Keep the car clean, otherwise it will suck away the vitality;
- The car windows should be cleaned regularly so that the energy of the universe can flow into the car;
- Sprinkling a handful of sea salt in your car can absorb negative energy;
- A blue ribbon tied on the rearview mirror of a car represents "water", so that the driver can absorb fresh air and keep his mind clear...
A Russian bishop presided over a consecration ceremony for the Russian Su-34 fighter jet.
Large buildings in Europe and the United States also invite Chinese Taoist priests to perform consecration to enhance cosmic energy.
3. Feng Shui in Business
In the United States, Feng Shui houses are as popular as school district houses, and many real estate agents have taken Feng Shui courses. In the professional courses for real estate agents, there is a course called " Feng Shui Principles" in order to better connect with customers who believe in Feng Shui; investors who invest in real estate in the United States also have to pay attention to Feng Shui. If the Feng Shui is not good, the house will be difficult to sell.
Senior business people work hard to learn Feng Shui, and they firmly believe that Feng Shui is a tool in trade that can help them better understand market attributes.
Wall Street financial elites and Silicon Valley technology giants are also curious about Feng Shui, hoping to rely on this mysterious metaphysics to defeat their competitors, gain huge wealth, and identify corporate spies.
Some people even study Feng Shui to predict stock and securities trends for the next month.
In 2000, Coca-Cola was in a bottleneck, with declining performance, plummeting stocks, personnel turmoil, and bleak prospects. The Coca-Cola headquarters in the United States held a board meeting and invited the most famous Feng Shui master in Hong Kong to look at the Feng Shui of Coca-Cola and adjust the geomancy of the Coca-Cola headquarters.
McDonald's later redesigned its stores using the Yin-Yang and Five Elements concepts combined with Feng Shui architectural techniques. They changed the staff's uniforms and the colors of the interior decoration.
The McDonald's uncle sitting on the bench at the door was considered to be detrimental to the Feng Shui layout, so the top management decided to replace him. Now you can no longer see the McDonald's uncle sitting on the bench outside the store. In addition, the staff's uniforms, the colors and decorations inside the store have also changed a lot.
The British government also invited Feng Shui masters to plan the city. The Feng Shui masters suggested that building more fountains and planting more plants would help reduce crime.
The new American Embassy in China was completed at 8:08 on August 8, 2008. The Americans chose the auspicious time with five 8s to add auspiciousness to the building. The five buildings in the embassy represent the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. The pavilions, terraces and ponds are laid out in a "Shen Zi Chen" Feng Shui triple combination.
4. Feng Shui in the Academic World
Feng Shui, which is popular all over the world, has many fans among academic elites. At the Global Architecture Conference, architectural masters also talk about the I Ching and Feng Shui when they meet. Feng Shui has become the most fashionable topic.
Feng Shui Guide
With the development of world architecture and ecological environment, more and more scholars from research institutions have begun to study Chinese Feng Shui.
UNESCO, European and American multinational corporations, and European and American universities have invited Chinese Feng Shui masters to give lectures and provide consultation.
Hundreds of Feng Shui books have been published in the United States. Among them, the Feng Shui Guide published by Boston has been on the bestseller list for five consecutive years, and 15 versions have been released at one time. The author bought cars and houses with royalties, and the publishing house also made a lot of money.
The first university in the world to offer a Feng Shui major was an American university. Now there are 17 universities and 12 technical colleges in the United States that offer Feng Shui majors. Since the establishment of the Florida Feng Shui School, more than 10,000 students have graduated from the school.
People from all over the world are rushing to open Feng Shui schools. There is the Feng Shui Society UK in the UK, the Association of Feng Shui Consultants in Australia, the International Feng Shui Guild, etc. Internationally, they issue certificates similar to university degrees upon graduation.
Feng shui masters of different schools with blond hair and blue eyes and holding compasses have become the spokespersons for Feng shui in the United States.
5. Feng Shui for Celebrities
Feng Shui also has many supporters among politicians and business elites who believe in it.
Many wealthy people in Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong believe that it is Feng Shui that allows them to stand at the top of the business world and make huge amounts of money:
- Franco, the Spanish Nazi ruler who helped Hitler invade the Soviet Union during World War II, invited Chiang Kai-shek's Feng Shui master to Madrid to build a mausoleum for him. His tomb is located in the Guadarrama Mountains in Spain, surrounded by mountains on three sides, with excellent Feng Shui.
- Bill Gates, the world's richest man and founder of Microsoft, is a firm believer in Feng Shui. He also had his mansion in Washington, D.C., checked by a Feng Shui master. He believed that the mansion is surrounded by mountains and rivers and gathers the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, which is conducive to a brilliant career and a happy family. When Bill Gates came to China, he asked Feng Shui masters to check the room he stayed in, the construction of his own mansion, and all the branches of Microsoft in the world. He would only dare to build a villa and open a company in a place that Feng Shui masters approved. He would not dare to live in or use it if Feng Shui masters had not checked it.
- Brazilian President Temer felt that the magnetic field of the presidential palace was wrong and the feng shui was bad, so he moved out of the presidential palace with his entire family.
Trump, who reached the pinnacle thanks to Feng Shui.
U.S. President Trump has been in the news frequently in the past year, and has been a hot topic. Today we will not discuss his political views, but talk about his Feng Shui views. Trump Tower, one of New York's landmark buildings, was built according to Feng Shui.
When Trump was a real estate developer, he dealt with many Asians, and Feng Shui has aroused his interest since then.
When Trump Tower was being built in New York, he invited Feng Shui master Pun-Yin from Hong Kong to help him succeed in his love and career. The master felt that the traffic at the entrance of the building was like flying bullets, disrupting the building's magnetic field. In addition, the building's brown glass was prone to negative energy. He suggested that Trump build a metal ball at the entrance of the building to block the negative energy generated by oncoming traffic. He also suggested that Trump move the entrance of the building to face Central Park.
Because the master told Trump: "You lack water in the five elements, and you have too much earth."
Trump followed the master's advice and spent $1.5 billion to renovate the building inside and out. Facing the Central Park lake, the metal globe in front of the building forms a "strong dragon spitting out beads" to dispel evil spirits from all directions. Now the metal ball has become the iconic element of Trump Tower.
But it is indeed magical. From then on, everything went smoothly for Trump. He reached the peak of his life and became the President of the United States.
Trump said: "Whether you believe in Feng Shui or not, I did make money from it."
