Fengshui is the traditional Chinese practice of space placement and arrangement to attempt to harmonize with the environment, and is still popularinrural China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Okinawa.
In 1990's the Bank of China Tower on Hong Kong Island, designed blade-like shape by l. M Pei was supposed to put a deliberate curse upon the Government House and the former British administration. Fengshui aroused a great deal of social controversy and caused an international interest.
In the 2nd half of 19th century the Westerners planned to introduce telegraph, railway system and western-style architecture and tried to develop the mining industry in China. Chinese government, however, refused those plans because they might injure the traditional Fengshui belief. Westerners accordingly faced the resistance movement led by local gentry. In those days Fengshui was unknown among westerners and it was the first culture conflict between China and the West whose difficulties they had to surmount.
In this thesis l picked up three incidents which occurred, in the 2nd half of 19th century, because of cultural differences between China and the West which were mainly based on Fengshui: ①destruction of the Shanghai-Wusung telegraph of 1865, ②Shandong gold-rush movement of 1868, ③the Wu-shih-shan incident of 1878, and aimed to analyze historically how the Chinese and westerners understood Fengshui respectively.
As for materials for study l refered to the reports which Christian missionaries in China sent to their native countries, the British Foreign Office papers, English newspapers published in China, the Hai-fang-tang (Archives on maritime defense), Chinese newspapers, etc.
I reorganized the preceding study of history and tried to take another look at it from the view point of 'Fengshui'. I consequently confirmed that the local people, local gentry and Chinese officials had each different understanding about Fengshui even in the 2nd half of 19th century, and that there were resistance movements by the people who thought the westerners injured their 'Fengshui'. There was in sufficient Chinese control which often used popular Fengshui belief as their means of reaction against foreign encroachment on Chinese territorial and administrative integrity, for example, against the railway and telegraph exproitation.
Modern study of Fengshui includes reorganization of classic documents about Fengshui, study of construction of graves and tombs by anthropologists and geographical study of fengshui by architects. It is a great pleasure if this thesis will be of some help to the study of Fengshui of modern Chinese history.
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