According to Qingdao's media reports, some residents from that city who buy property bring along their "feng shui masters" as "consultants". Some consulting companies have developed this line of business and are doing quite well.
Miss Zhang who lives on Renmin Road wants to sell one unit of commercial property through an agent. After an agent took over her account, in the middle of last month, someone came to see the property. On that occasion, the potential buyer was happy with the flat, the setup and the price. During a second visit, the buyer brought along a "feng shui" master who, after reviewing the property, said the unit was unfit as it faces a reservoir and the buyer canceled his purchase intentions. "No matter what I said, he was not willing to consider buying my property. He rather listened to his feng shui master than to me." Miss Zhang was helpless in this situation.
Related feng shui books have become very popular. On the first floor of Book City, "Property Fortunes" that describe the feng shui (literally means wind and water, or the auspiciousness or lack of a property or landscape) of housing are prominently displayed. In the book center of Carrefour Supermarket, one can find many books on the same subject.
Head of Qingdao Technological University's architecture school, Professor Xu Feipeng, said that although there are no specific courses with feng shui content in the curriculum of the university's architecture school, the subject matter has something to do with architecture and its relationship to the environment. China's traditional feng shui studies are ancient scholars' summaries of the relationship between architecture and the environment and there are quite a few of these summaries that have no clear reasons but have simply been passed on through several thousand years. He believes that one should look at feng shui rationally and relate its teachings to facts.
(Chinanews.cn October 17, 2005)
