Talk:Feng shui

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[edit] Move page?

Is the "Shui" in Feng Shui supposed to be capitalized or should this paged be moved to the correct title?--Daveswagon 05:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

According to general usage, it should be as it is a noun. --Charlie Huang 【正矗昊】 18:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We do not capitalize ordinary nouns in English. The question is whether it should be treated as a proper noun, which is capitalized. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Standard usage seems to be "feng shui". I've moved the page. Fireplace 13:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Combination of Statistics and Scientific

Thousands of years ago, the Lok She and Hall To predicted the success of the harvest each year. By the centre of Lok River, the ancient people have found the pattern of incidents of each crop. After a few thousand years, people found the old records of incidents were accurate, they then passed their knowledge to the followers.

There have been over 100 types of Feng Shui theory. But the most applicable is by practice. A lot of Feng Shui doctors hide themselves if they know much about it. It is harmful if people know its usage.

The basic theory of it is to utilize the 5 elements of earth and 8 elements of Gaw. The 5 elements of earth are Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. The 8 elements of Gaw are Kin, Tu, Fire, Chun, Shung, Water, Kun, and the Kwon. The combination of them could deduce the things to happen in a house, a region and any where of the earth. Edited by Josephine Lau at 10/Nov/2005 12:40

Feng Shui strikes me as a layer of astounding commen sense hidden in a layer of hocus pocus. Lest some outraged Fend Shui master send sha chi darts in my direction, I'd like to stress that this is my own personal opinion and only my opinion.

To me Feng Shui is not about cluttering your house with sad plastic frogs that mournfully report back that they have failed to bring money your way. Its about clearing space so that you can navigate freely through your environment. Its about drawing your eyes to pleasant harmonious images. Clearly, if you have to navigate around sharp corners, old stacks of newspaper and boxes of 1980s fashions, your motion will be crimped. Your mind thinks in metaphor. When your passage down a corridor starts to resemble Franklin's Last Voyage, you will begin to wonder if your course through life is also a failed expedition. Pictures of flowers and waterfalls channel your thinking in a better direction.

To me, thinking about the flow of chi is a more dynamic and summary way at looking at your environment than analyzing each and every possible accident. You want to tilt your odds towards easy navigation and away from accidents. Quantum physicists talk about probability waves. Cayte 03:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)Cayte

[edit] Ethnoscience

What on earth is an ethnoscience? It wasn't in my dictionary, but I managaged to find a definition eventually. I don't mean what is the dictionary definition of the word, I mean who decided that the term ethnoscience is applicable here. What's wrong with Pseudoscience? Where are the criticisms of Feng Shui in this article? Where is the proof that it's not just an expensive pseudoscientific fad? --Gantlord 19:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that's fairly covered in the "Overview" section where the article is fairly harsh about the new age versions. (That's the faddish variety, after all.) But "ethnoscience" doesn't seem to apply at all. Another name for it is "cognitive anthropology" (see [1]) so while Feng Shui practices might well be the subject of an ethnoscientific study, it's plainly not that itself.

In general this article is extremely uneven, and I for one can't make heads or tails of the recent addition which, for some reason, is duplicated above on the talk page. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Feng Shui of Computer Monitors?

The installation instructions for my computer monitor include a step saying "Set the front of your monitor to face the east if possible". Is this part of the Feng Shui of setting up a computer workstation? --Carnildo 04:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

My only guess is that they're worried about glare from the sun. Since I assume most computer use is in the afternoon/evening rather than dawn/morning, making your monitor face east would mean that there's less chance of the sun causing glare on your screen. Nothing to do with feng shui, and a completely unsubstantiated guess, but still possibly an explanation for that instruction. --CoderGnome 16:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

it's not possible.

I don't know for sure that this is why the directions in the manual are such, but CRT type monitors(and TV's) can be effected by the eath's magnetic field, just like they can be effected by fridge magnets etc, and thus the orientation of the monitor relative to the earths poles can matter. I could be wrong about this, but I seem to remember reading that the main problem was if a monitor were used for a long time whilst it faced one direction, and then the direction of the monitor was altered at some point, that this could effect the picture.

[edit] Hong Kong Disneyland

I removed this sentence:

It is alleged that Hong Kong Disneyland applied feng shui to the layout of the park.

This sentence uses weasel words and does not cite its sources ("it is alleged"). There is only one sentence on the subject and it sort of cuts into the section. See my change over here. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Postmodernism

I think this section merits a serious rewrite, which I may do myself. While the title is "postmodernism," the section does not mention postmodernism once aside from the title, let alone explain what the events and ideas of the section have to do with postmodernism. It is also NPOV given the questionable link to pseudoscience (nothing is put forth as to how feng shui might be interpreted as pseudoscience). For some reason, this sort of cynicism towards "postmodernism" and "pseudoscience" seems to be everywhere on the internet (while few of the cynics even bother to define such vague terms; quite "postmodern" imho). Even so, you still have the responsibility of writing a cohesive paragraph. I will rewrite this sillyness if nobody else does.

New sections on the bottom, please. I've moved this one here. You can add a new section to the bottom automatically by clicking the "+" next to the "Edit this page" link. You will be prompted for a title and content.

It's labelled as a "pseudoscience" because that's what it is, at least the new-agey varieties. If it's about achieving a harmonious arrangement of design elements, then it's not a science at all but a valid technique. (Note the section on traditional feng shui describes it in those terms.) Possibly it can be a supersitition to the extent that "luck" or something similar is supposed to be affected by it. But as soon as you start talking about energy flows and so forth, i.e. effects that ought to be measureable and falsifiable, then it's a pseudoscience. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there had not been a single mention of "postmodernism" in the article itself, although "postmodernism" is the title of the article! So I rewrote it as to clarify. Little or no content was deleted, I simply added a few explanations and rearranged the paragraphs to make more sense.

[edit] Getty Center and Feng Shui

The image caption states, "The Getty Center in Los Angeles, allegedly an articulation of feng shui, though there is little evidence". Well, either it is or it isn't, and if we aren't sure, I don't really think such an ambiguous image/caption is really relevent to the article. Should it be removed? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnoscience 2

Oxford defines ethnoscience as the study of the different ways the world is perceived and categorized in different cultures. So, Feng Shui is not an ethnoscience.

I replaced the term with "belief system", which may be too broad to be useful. However, there is precisely no scientific basis in Feng Shui. As such, if "belief system" is replaced with something more specific, it should not be reverted back to a term that gets cozy with scientific terminology. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.95.0.34 (talk • contribs).

Or that simply misapplies scientific terminology.

I think this is going to be necessarily difficult to characterize briefly because it's applied in such diverse ways. From one POV it's a codification of certain aesthetic principles. From another it appears to relate to traditional Chinese astrology and folk religion. From yet another it's an odd combination of both of the above with an admixture of new-agey pseudoscience. "Belief system" may be the best that we can do. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introdutction

I believe naming issues and etmology should have their own section. Instead, before the contents, I believe it should say what it is... It doesn't say what is Feng Shui... Is it a religion? An ethereal being?201.56.56.96 05:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation, Verifiability problems

No statements in this article are sourced. Because of the nature of the topic, the lack of everyday knowledge about it, and the lack of reliable English-language feng shui resources on internet, this is a big problem. I'm adding fact tags throughout the article, and barring improvement over the next week or so, I suggest reducing the article to a stub and starting over. Fireplace 16:03, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been almost a week and no efforts at sourcing the current version have been made. I did due diligence and tried to source them myself online, but everything led back to this article. I'm going to take a hatchet to the article and swap in a new, sourced version. Some of the new text is pretty good, some is REALLY bad (the Doctrine and Bagua sections). But it's a start. Fireplace 02:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Research

Has there been any research into the validity of feng shui? Either cosmic or phsycological benefits of seeing something that is "appealing to the eyes", instead of a mess of pot plants and walls? JayKeaton 09:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been searching the internet for scholarly discussions of feng shui over the past week. On sites like JSTOR you'll find some historical articles about feng shui (very interesting), but I haven't found any psychological studies about its validity. Fireplace 14:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitary changes?

Fireplace has made a lot of changes which do not seem to make sense... He/ She does not come across as a person who has even superfical knowledge of Chinese Metaphysics... e.g. there is nothing called "Compass School" and "Form School" in Authentic Feng Shui... all schools have to use compass (directions) and Forms (natural as well as manmade)... The real schools are San He (Three Harmonies) and San Yuan (Three Cycles. The former uses the unchanging to tackle the changing while the later uses changing to take care of the unchanging… I agree that some of the earlier content was not relevant… but you can’t throw the baby out with the bath water…—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bhargo (talk • contribs) 00:29, July 28, 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bhargo. You're right, I'm a newbie to this stuff, and I encourage you and everyone else to make (referenced) changes and additions. As I explained above (Talk:Feng shui#Citation, Verifiability problems), none of the earlier material was sourced and I after a good faith effort I wasn't able to verify any of it from reliable sources (WP:V). Also, you're right, the material was disorganized and sometimes of dubious relevance. So that's why I made massive cuts. As for my new additions, I'm (slowly) searching through whatever acadamic or otherwise reliable sources I can find and building up from there (I am specifically not regarding the countless commercial feng shui sites on the internet as reliable). Please, source and contribute.

Also, remember to add new sections to the end of the talk page, and to sign your comments with four tildes ~~~~ . Thanks. Fireplace 12:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fireplace. Frankly there is not much published in Western World about Authentic Traditional Feng Shui. Except for 2 books (Complete Idiot's Guide to Feng Shui by Elizabeth Moran & A Master Course in Feng Shui by Eva Wong) i have yet to come across a good work in English on this subject. There are online articles by good masters like Joseph Yu, Joey Yap and Raymond Lo. But should we ingore it because it's on their "Commercial" website. I think it would be great disservice not to allow links to such artcles. There is no mention in this stub of Wu Xing or 5 Elements and hence I had put up an article which was removed. Feng Shui is part of 5 arts of China and we need to understand other aspect also. Referenced quotes for the same is not possible and hence people at large will never learn about it... very sad!!! Bhargo 05 Aug 2006

[edit] Skepticism

The skepticism section reads as if mostly Westerners only consider Feng Shui to be pseudoscience. From the description on this page and on 風水 page of the Japanese Wikipedia (which is a rather POV stub, claiming e.g. that there's investigation of the relationship between geomagnetism and people in the Feng Shui of "modern science"), it certainly involves superstition (or religion or whatever it should be called to be politically correct). In that light, I find it hard to believe that skeptical view of it would be limited to Westerners only -- there are Eastern scientists and skeptics, too. If someone has knowledge about this, it would make the article less Western-centric. -- Coffee2theorems | Talk 19:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Western Feng Shui?

I don't understand why this topic should be placed under "Architecture". Western people always associate Feng Shui with decorating and placement of objects in a house but I have never seen it used in this way in China. I have had friends in China who went to Feng Shui experts to find a good date to get married or a good time to go overseas or many other reasons, but nobody I have ever known in China has used Feng Shui to decorate their house. Has Feng Shui been adapted and changed when it came to the West? I've also always been confused as to why Feng Shui is taken as fact in Western countries whereas in China it is treated as superstition by most people.

My wife is Chinese and placement of walls and doors according to compass points (ie the front door should face the south; there should not be a clear straight path from the front to the back - to prevent the Qi from being flushed out; etc) are often very important topics of conversation. Whether this is Feng Shui or not, I couldn't tell you.

[edit] Feng Shui Form School

To whom it may concern:

I have left a post on the Feng Shui Form School. My name is Candace Czarny and I am dedicated to educating people about Feng Shui and the benefits it can bring you. I would very much appreciate a link to my site www.artoffengshuiinc.com We provide a free Feng Shui E-course, many free articles a Q&A Section, a Case Study section and a Feng Shui Adventure where people learn about how to implement cures.

Thank you for your consideration.

Windwater 18:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I'm having a very difficult time establishing that the links here meet Wikipedia's standards for external links: see Wikipedia:External links Several of the links were to sites that had very little in the way of resources or original information. Two of the links were to schools/training centers. If we linked to every school teaching or training in a given subject, I'd hate to see the external link section for, say, Psychology. At any rate, if your link has been removed and you're wondering why, please see the above reference I've linked. I'd love for someone else to look at the remaining links with a critical eye. I believe more, frankly, could be done.Snackycakes 02:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Having taken a longer look at the SmilingBamboo link that keeps reappearing, it really seems to be the Sears Catalog of Feng Shui resourses - virtually every article seems intended to guide you to purchase some "remedy" from them. Snackycakes 16:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

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