Symbiosis and variation between feng shui and Hong Kong pop culture : from cultural capital to hyper-realistic cultural representation and consumption = 風水學說與香港流行文化的共生與變異 : 從文化資本到超真實的文化再現與消費

Abstract

My thesis attempts to study the inter-relations between Feng Shui and Hong Kong culture from historical, social and cultural point of view and most important, the value behind. My research aims to analyze the meaning & values, both positive and negative, of Feng Shui culture in Hong Kong contemporary culture through multimedia such as local news, TV shows and movies, with the hope to put Feng Shui in a proper discipline for further understanding on the formation of Chinese culture and its system. To analyze the uniqueness of Feng Shui, through which under the coverage of media, is deeply affecting the life of all social classes, at the same time support the different school of thoughts in pop culture, modern consumption and media studies, how Feng Shui evolved from pop culture, consumerism and media while also being transformed by all these means.

My thesis will walk through the beginning of Feng Shui, tracing early Feng Shui development and its fundamental concepts and to demonstrate the core idea of harmonious combination of heaven and human based on ancient literature and the various school of thoughts. Such idea is a unique thinking in Chinese culture, however, with the interaction of contemporary culture and media, is being mediated to a kind of consumerism though the reproduction of Hong Kong culture which I will talk more how the value is being transformed in later chapters. My research question is going to investigate on the reasons why the more popular Feng Shui culture in the Hong Kong society, the less it could become a formal discipline in tertiary education. Though Feng Shui appears in many aspects of life among the general public, people are reluctant to openly accept their inner superstitious belief. Such contradiction will be further analyzed by means of news, TV, movies under the study of consumerism, media study and culture production with an aim to derived the meaning (both positive and negatives) of Feng Shui in contemporary culture.

The concept of cultural capital by Bourdieu is used to analyse Feng Shui culture in Hong Kong. Whether the secret knowledge’ possessed by the Feng Shui master has reconfirmed their cultural competency to uphold their social status through the reproduction of their cultural knowledge in mass media, or Feng Shui remains as a folk religion, a habitus for a specific social class. The later chapter attempts to analyse the interaction between Hong Kong pop culture and best-selling Feng Shui books written by famous Feng Shui masters. The last chapter will be discussing the various ‘fields” in the battle of Feng Shui. Feng Shui, as a habitus, is created through a social process leading to patterns that are enduring and transferable within different social classes. This chapter makes use of those popular Feng Shiu Masters in Hong Kong and see how they empower themselves in the ‘field” by displaying and repackaging their knowledge, especially with the help of media and marketing their names, and see how “power” is displayed in the institutionalisation of different “fields”.