I've been looking into feng shui to get a better sense of my spiritual energy, but it occurred to me that I might be engaging in cultural appropriation since I don't know its real history. I know I cringe when it's treated like a New Age-y kick, but maybe using it at all is disrespectful since I don't have any Asian heritage. So, is using feng sui cultural appropriation? Also do you know its history? Thank you for your blog; Google hasn't been super helpful.
Feng Shui has been twisted and misinterpreted by outsiders and the New Age version is definitely a watered down version of the practice.
I’ll start with a quick general history of the practice to get at the essence of it. Feng Shui essentially started as people wanting their buildings to be in service to their lives. For example, people wanted the sunlight to enter the house in the morning so that they can wake up, but at the same time, they did not want the sun to make the house too hot during midday. Feng Shui developed out of the common sense involved in designing our living & commercial spaces to serve our wants and needs.
Admittedly, even many Chinese also don’t know much about what Feng Shui really is. Many Feng Shui masters (even the Chinese ones) are overly superstitious about the practice and are scammers most of the time.
As for how Feng Shui actually functions in Chinese life, my family has used Feng Shui for choosing our house and family graves. Most Chinese graveyards are on hills because it is believed that if we bury our ancestors in a hill, they’ll get a nice view and bless us for the gesture (that really is the reason, even I found it amusing when I found out).
Now I would consider the New Age Feng Shui textbook cultural appropriation. As for non-Chinese making the effort to research into what Feng Shui really is and the history behind it, I wouldn’t be offended personally as at that point, you’re being respectful since you would be making the effort to do research.
Admittedly, I personally don’t know much about Feng Shui, my dad knows about it way more than I do, but that was a basic gist of Feng Shui.
