SOCIAL RESEARCH IN THE N.T. OF HONG KONG, 1963 221
water moves fast the Breaths will be drawn away. Hills must protect the site against the former calamity; the latter must be prevented by avoiding places from which streams and rivers flow. Hills, or in their default barriers set up by man (trees or even walls), must stand to the rear and on the flanks, so that the site rests in a kind of easy-chair (a frequent image). The hills behind the site support it. The hills to the left, as the site faces its unshielded fourth side, are the Blue or (as it is more usually translated in Hong Kong) the Green Dragon (ts’ing lung); those to the right are the White Tiger (pa'ak fu). The Dragon is not a dragon; the Tiger is not a tiger. The one is a beneficent force (one comes close to Chinese conceptions in speaking of it as an electrical or magnetic force) which animates the hills and spreads itself in the approaches to the site; a loi lung, an advancing dragon, may come from the rear to pour its virtue into the grave or building. The other is a force of danger (a White Tiger not because its body colour is white but because it bears a white patch on its forehead, a sign of fierceness), which protects as long as it is in complementary relationship with the Dragon. Dragon and Tiger must be present in the right proportions. The former must stand higher than the latter to ensure a proper balance between them. The one is 'yang, the other 'yin'. The one is civil, the other military. They are opposite and complementary, neither by itself providing any benefit, and together in the correct ratio ensuring concentration of the Breaths.
52. The entities are metaphysical. The statement remains true even when, as in some cases, the hills look like a dragon, a resemblance made the more likely by the use of the word lung for any long and sinuous object—a queue of people, a train, a trail of smoke. Other creatures, human among them, and objects may be detected in the landscape, conferring benefit on the site. There is a grave in the New Territories (it is not unique in southeastern China) which lies in the crutch of a naked woman. There are forms of animals and deities. These things are not there physically and literally, and Chinese think Europeans naive for supposing the contrary. They are signs. The Dragon has Sinews and Veins which may be cut; its Blood may flow. But Sinews, Veins, and Blood are mystical, even though (as the Administration had cause to know from the case of the road-cutting at Tai Mei Tuk) we may see them.