The town of Tekesi in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is laid out in a "Bagua" design, the eight important elements that influence a person's life. Photo: CFP

Most people familiar with feng shui, which literally means wind and water, understand it as a fairly quaint belief in some mysterious workings of the universe.

Where it is caught on in other countries, people might consider some feng shui principles when decorating their apartment or aligning their doors and windows and even toilets in an auspiciously correct manner when designing a new home.

In China, the 6,500-year-old art of divining a mutually beneficial symbiosis between humans and the environment is still used by some to try to influence their fate, their health and even their careers.

Taken to this level, the strongly held system of beliefs becomes cultish superstition that has pushed local government officials to do the oddest things.

Hu Jianxue, the former Party secretary of the tourism city Tai'an, Shandong Province, at the foot of the famous Tai-shan Mountain, was told by his feng shui master that he would soon be appointed a vice-premier of the country.  The only problem the master said cryptically was that Hu lacked a "bridge."

Hu somehow got it into his head that he literally needed to build a bridge and he ordered it done. He changed the route of a national highway so it would pass a reservoir and would require a bridge be built.

Hu must have thought this was a master stroke at unblocking his feng shui, but it got him nowhere close to his coveted vice premiership. His feng shui master apparently failed to warn him about the essential need of being an honest politician. Hu was later convicted of taking huge bribes and was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

Hu is not at all alone in spending taxpayers' money to fulfill the requirements of fortune-tellers masquerading as feng shui masters.

In a poor county in Gansu Province officials spent 5 million yuan ($791,695) in September 2010 to move a 369-ton rock nine kilometers to the county square to block bad luck from entering the town and prevent good luck escaping from the community. Some reports put the cost of the project as high as 11 million yuan.

In early 2007, a side of Laoshou Mountain, located in Fumin county of Yunnan Province, was found to have been painted green, and several reports suggested it was to enhance the feng shui and the view from an office building of the Party committee.

Similar examples have been documented around the country and the pattern seems the same. Incompetent and opportunistic officials hoping to improve their fate, heed the orders of so-called feng shui masters.

Millennia-old belief system

Some people believe feng shui charts and documents have been unearthed from crypts dating more than 6,500 years.

Feng shui masters have been widely consulted by Chinese architects for several thousand years.

Professor Zhang Jianwei with the School of Law of Tsinghua University wrote in his blog last October about the different reasons why people and officials cling to their belief in feng shui.

He says it is acceptable that some officials invite feng shui masters to help make sure that construction projects they build are better.

"Some officials use feng shui after they have done vile deeds because they believe some mysterious force is controlling them and hope feng shui will help them avoid disaster and bring more opportunities to get them promoted," wrote Zhang.

To get a promotion or to change their luck, superstitious officials often accept feng shui consultations that are given as gifts by those seeking favors.

"If officials ask someone in business to pay for a feng shui master's advice, it certainly is a bribe," said He Bing, vice president with School of Law, China University of Political Science and Law in an interview with Fangyuan Magazine.

50 percent are superstitious

"Members of the Communist Party of China are supposed to be atheists and should only believe in Marxism-Leninism, but in reality some of them are not," said Cheng Ping, a professor with Department of Social and Cultural Studies with the Chinese Academy of Governance. In fact atheism is a founding principle of the Party and remains a requirement for Party membership.

Cheng's 2006 survey of 900 county-level civil servants about their superstitious beliefs found that 52.4 percent believed or somewhat believed in superstition. Many respondents said they were more likely to believe in superstition if they were told of imminent bad luck or a pending disaster.

"The same psychological conditions exist in those who believe in superstition and feng shui. People, including officials, believe it works just in case it's true," said Cheng, suggesting that many people feel they must hedge their bets as insurance against bad luck.

The sixth survey on science literacy, released by the Chinese Science Research Institute in 2007 found that 21 percent of the public say they believe in feng shui.

"It is very complicated. Some officials believe in these things for three main reasons: influence of traditional Chinese culture, historic culture of officialdom, and the system used to choose and promote officials," said Cheng.

"Being an official is a high-risk occupation," said Cheng, suggesting that many believe their careers are determined by fate, not by the work or the efforts they make.

"Party members have vowed to be loyal to communism, it is obviously inappropriate for them to have other beliefs," said Cheng, who believes it is an urgent issue to study how to integrate a diversified society into the unified guiding ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

"Along with feng shui some officials pay too much attention to things they shouldn't," said Cheng, adding that some officials studying at her academy are often more interested in learning strategies and tactics that will make them popular rather than developing a deep understanding of the science of governance.

Cheng says this shows that the country's push and emphasis on scientific development, still have a long way to go.

Not everyone agrees that feng shui and political leadership are incompatible.

"Understanding feng shui must be separated from political concepts," said Yu Xixian, a retired professor with School of Environment at Peking University, who in the 1980s taught a course on feng shui. Yu says feng shui is misunderstood when people use it for political purposes or personal gain.

Not a contradiction

Yu says believing in feng shui and the Party are two different concepts that don't contradict each other.

Feng shui isn't related to materialism or ideology, said Yu. It is part of ancient Chinese philosophy that includes the study of yin and yang and the theory that dictates that all things are connected to the five elements: gold, wood, water, fire and earth.

"Feng shui is a superstition, which suggests that well-designed buildings located in certain properly-chosen places can bring blessings to the offspring of people who build them according to the directions of feng shui masters," said Fang Zhouzi, a well-known science writer and critic, who gained fame for bashing pseudo-science and has written critiques of traditional Chinese medicine.

Fang says there are some elements of feng shui that were used in the design of ancient buildings, but science has supplanted most of those concepts.

"Large amounts of social resources are being wasted to pay for the beliefs of some officials," said Fang, adding they should be held legally accountable.

Yet Yu, the retired professor from Peking University, says feng shui has nothing to do with feudal superstition as it is not based on ghosts or gods.

Culturally damaging

"Feng shui is about the study of human beings and the structures that surround them," said Yu, adding that it's a very important part of traditional Chinese culture.

"There are cheaters in every profession," said Xu Shaoshan, with the Chinese Architecture and Feng Shui Culture Committee. Xu believes some people posing as feng shui masters are charlatans who are damaging the reputation of the ancient science.

Xu said last century Russia was very interested in the study of feng shui and Chinese medical practices.

Xu declined to comment on officials abusing their power and spending taxpayers' money on feng shui, but insists that everyone has the right to pursue good fortune and avoid disaster, even officials.

"There is a limit to everything, and once it's passed it becomes superstition," conceded Xu, who maintains the excessive superstitious practices of some officials have nothing to do with feng shui.