Empty Mind Films

On this film trip around China, no matter where we went and what we filmed, the Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hakka houses and Chen Taichi, almost every interviewee would like to show us the diagram of Taichi, and illustrate the principle of yin and yang, bagua, and five elements. For the Hakka houses, people would mention the word “fengshui” all the time.

“Our ancestors are very great, the principle of Taichi is very mysterious and beyond every word,” I heard this all the time.

I am not denying the greatness of that circle composed with two fishes, although according to some experts, the two-fish circle can only be called yin-yang diagram, the real taichi diagram is just a plain circle. Besides, it really looks cool when a person practices taichi in that circle or builds a house by drawing that circle at the center of the house or puts that circle on the clothes. It is so popular that as long as Chinese culture is mentioned, it mostly probably comes out covered with a mysterious face with the introducers’ blinky words. If you have some questions, they would say, “it is normal that you don’t understand, it is very deep and our ancestors are too smart.”

I think just this can best show the attitude of modern Chinese to traditional Chinese culture— they pretend to know it by pretending not to know it.

So, people lay more hopes on this mysterious thing and draw it and put it everywhere especially the business people, many of them put that in the offices to get better fengshui and get more money without knowing how it really does function.

People always bow to something that claims to be too complicated to be understood.

But anyway, there should be some persons, especially scholars to stand up and say they can convey some of the deep meanings of this circle to “make it benefit more people”. And then they did and were awed by many people who were benefited by benefiting back with a lot of money. But the scholars insist that what they know is also just a tiny part of this “mysterious eastern wisdom”.

So the word “mysterious” can serve for two causes: first, since it is mysterious, you won’t understand it, so you need me; second, also since it is mysterious, I might also make mistakes in clarifying it, so don’t blame me on my mistakes.

So for the overuse of this diagram, there might be also two reasons: first, I use it to show that I love traditional Chinese culture, as a fashion or blind pride, second, it seems that it is the best way to make money and don’t have to shoulder the responsibilities.