How Feng Shui Is Being Discredited in Hong Kong

Islandspics HK / Alamy

Circle game A round entrance, signifying good feng shui, leads into the courtyard of a Hong Kong temple

Hong Kongers, myself included, love to affect a certain expertise when it comes to feng shui. Because I am otherwise a materialist (as in believing only in physical matter, not as in bling), it has always been self-contradictory of me to discourse on the Chinese system of geomancy and the notion that the arrangement of landscape and objects affects well-being. At dinner parties, I can denounce mysticism — or yogic flying or reincarnation — as shrilly as any Red Guard, and declare that Christians ought to be deprived of the vote. But I'm also capable, at the evening's conclusion,...

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