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Americans Looking To Chinese Culture
To Enrich Their Life The latest Chinese cultural icon to make its impact there is feng shui1, China's ancient art of placement. In my recent trip to California, virtually all leading book stores and public libraries were well-stocked with plenty of publications on this highly esoteric subject.
Why do Americans take to feng shui like fish to water? It owed its early success to the dogged efforts of a handful of Chinese feng shui experts. But from around 1990 onwards, numerous feng shui schools have sprung up in large American cities including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston and Houston. Their enrolments have risen by leaps and bounds.
Its adherents find its commonsensible approach to daily living an effective counterweight to materialism, and helps them to reduce the intrusion of technology into their lives. With its emphasis on achieving balance and harmony and peace and tranquillity at home and at work, this time-honoured art relaxes their minds and helps them overcome stresses and strains of modern living. They firmly believe that once their mental and physical well-being are in equilibrium2, then good health, work efficiency and prosperity will come their way naturally.
A conspicuous manifestation of feng shui is through the proliferation of miniature fountains strategically placed in the homes, offices, shops, restaurants and at other public places. This is because water attracts the all-important life -sustaining qi, or energy. The soothing rhythm of running water gently beating down on pebbles or bamboos can uplift one’s spirits as it symbolises a vital source of life .
Underpinning the growing popularity of Chinese things is the emergence of China as a potential world political and economic superpower. This coincided with its reopening up to the outside world which has enabled an increasing number of Americans to travel there in order to experience at first hand3 the splendours of this venerable civilisation.
Added to this, the thriving Chinese communities in many American urban centres and their reputation as a model minority have aroused further their interests in this distant land, which is so vastly different from theirs.
One of the palpable strengths of the United States is that it is truly an open society. This makes it easier for it to absorb cultural values and practices from other countries and to nurture them so that they become part of the social fabric of its own multiethnic and multicultural community.
練習題：
Ⅰ. Choose the best words to fill the blanks:
1. Hitler, the enemy of Poland and the rest of European world, became more and more warlike.
A. public B. potential C. ancient D. effective
2. People who enjoy a good are respected by many.
A. balance B. harmony C. tranquility D. reputation
3. The growing of Internet makes the parents worry about its negative side over their kids.
A. equilibrium B. popularity C. icon D. emergence
4. The main of feng shui is to reconsider man's relationship with nature .
A. proliferation B. value C. practice D. fabric
Ⅱ. Question:
Which reason below Ca n No t explain why feng shui is so popular in US?
A. The United States is truly an open society.
B. The emergence of China as a potential world political and economic superpower.
C. Feng shui as an effective counterweight to materialism.
D. The dogged efforts of a handful of Chinese feng shui experts.
E. Feng shui’s theory and practice becoming easy.
