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Nevertheless tun fu may be seen as an extension of feng shui, although the latter is riteless whereas the rites of tun fu are complicated as can be seen from this paper. Feng shui is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy', and the home, the workplace and the grave are designed so that they 'reconcile' with environmental currents and cosmic principles. And when the Author has told Chinese friends that there are aspects of feng shui that he believes in they have frequently retorted that you cannot be selective and just pick what you like as in a supermarket. You either believe in it in its entirety or not at all. But with much of the doctrine being considered by some Westerners as little more than superstition, total acceptance is not always easy for the average Caucasian. One person's superstition can indeed sometimes be another person's religion.
The Pat Heung ceremony
This paper concentrates on the large tun fu ceremony that was held in the district known as Pat Heung, which is situated at the eastern end of the Kam Tin--Pat Heung Valley.3 This lies nearly in the middle of the New Territories and is enclosed by steep hills on its northern, southern and eastern sides (Hong Kong Government; 1960, 170). To give an idea how rural it was until comparatively recently, in 1965 it was reported that a tiger had been sighted in the Pat Heung district (South China Morning Post, 1965). The police conducted a search but failed to find it. Approximately 90 per cent of the population in Pat Heung are of Hakka stock and the remainder are Punti, although today, only the elderly speak Hakka. The people have mixed surnames unlike many old, single family-name villages in the New Territories although nowadays, with greater social mobility, people with other surnames have not infrequently moved into them in varying numbers. Freedman writes that possibly tun fu rites were originally Hakka but they were adopted by the Cantonese (1979, 207). I have not seen any evidence to support this view nor does he appear to provide any sources supporting this statement.
The reason this large tun fu ceremony was held in the Pat Heung district, in 1999, was because a tunnel (at the time of writing) is being cut through the mountain for a new railway line. This necessitated moving family graves. It is understood the Government paid Pat Heung District village committees HK$600,000 to meet expenses for the holding
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Nevertheless tun fu may be seen as an extension of feng shui, although the latter is riteless whereas the rites of tun fu are complicated as can be seen from this paper. Feng shui is sometimes inadequately called 'Chinese geomancy', and the home, the workplace and the grave are designed so that they 'reconcile' with environmental currents and cosmic principles. And when the Author has told Chinese friends that there are aspects of feng shui that he believes in they have frequently retorted that you cannot be selective and just pick what you like as in a supermarket. You either believe in it in its entirety or not at all. But with much of the doctrine being considered by some Westerners as little more than superstition, total acceptance is not always easy for the average Caucasian. One person's superstition can indeed sometimes be another person's religion.
The Pat Heung ceremony
This paper concentrates on the large tun fu ceremony that was held in the district known as Pat Heung, which is situated at the eastern end of the Kam Tin--Pat Heung Valley.3 This lies nearly in the middle of the New Territories and is enclosed by steep hills on its northern, southern and eastern sides (Hong Kong Government; 1960,170). To give an idea how rural it was until comparatively recently, in 1965 it was reported that a tiger had been sighted in the Pat Heung district (South China Morning Post, 1965). The police conducted a search but failed to find it. Approximately 90 per cent of the population in Pat Heung are of Hakka stock and the remainder are Punti, although today, only the elderly speak Hakka. The people have mixed surnames unlike many old, single family-name villages in the New Territories although nowadays, with greater social mobility, people with other surnames have not infrequently moved into them in varying numbers. Freedman writes that possibly tun fu rites were originally Hakka but they were adopted by the Cantonese (1979,207). I have not seen any evidence to support this view nor does he appear to provide any sources supporting this statement.
The reason this large tun fu ceremony was held in the Pat Heung district, in 1999, was because a tunnel (at the time of writing) is being cut through the mountain for a new railway line. This necessitated moving family graves. It is understood the Government paid Pat Heung District village committees HK$600,000 to meet expenses for the holding
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