【Zhangjiage 2】The Wisdom of Feng Shui and Human Kindness Beneath a Straw Hat

I never met the old man. He died when I was very young.

Yet, in the long, murmuring years of my grandmother’s home, he has always seemed to linger — half visible, half hidden. His stories would drift into our conversations through the recollections of the elders, carrying a touch of legend and the quiet warmth of life in the countryside.

They said he understood feng shui, knew the mysteries of fate, and, above all, understood people.

In the wisdom of the older generation, feng shui was really the breath of nature — a way of reading mountains and rivers, land and weather, underground watercourses, and, ultimately, a way of understanding how people live with the land.

The old man had a special gift for reading the “water veins” beneath the farmland.

If underground water was too abundant and the land lay too low, fertile fields could easily become flooded. If the water veins ran too dry, the earth would crack beneath the sun. Only when the water was in balance — when underground springs could nourish the fields during drought, yet drain naturally during floods — could the land truly be called fertile.

For farming families whose livelihood depended on the soil, land was their lifeline.

Whether it was choosing farmland, selecting a site for a home or burial ground, or making a land transaction, such decisions could affect the rise and fall of an entire family or clan.

There were no rulers or instruments for this craft. It depended entirely on a trained eye, accumulated experience, and the wisdom forged through decades of living in intimate contact with the land.

He could also read a person’s bazi — the traditional Chinese system of interpreting a person’s destiny from the eight characters of their birth date and time.

People said that when he examined a bazi, he could often tell at a glance whether a marriage was well matched. Yet he never made a living from such things. When villagers came to him sincerely seeking advice, he would speak of their fortune and their ties of destiny, tell them what he genuinely believed, and stop where he should — never resorting to mystification.

But what impressed people even more than his ability to read the land or the bazi was his gift for settling disputes and harmonizing relationships in the village.

In the misty, rainy Jiangnan countryside, friction between neighbors was inevitable. Yet no matter how deep the grievance, once he sat down at the tea table and patiently talked things through, two families who had once been on the verge of confrontation could often set aside their differences and shake hands again.

When Shanghai fell under occupation in the last century, war and turmoil spread everywhere, and fear hung in the air.

Yet, somehow, Zhangjiage remained remarkably peaceful.

An old man, wearing a worn-out straw hat, drew upon a lifetime of wisdom and respect to protect the tranquility of his village and help many people find a little safety in those turbulent years.

Looking back now, even his name seems strangely meaningful.

His name was Zhang Yufeng.

“Yu” — rain — evokes the Chinese expression chunfeng huayu, “spring wind and gentle rain,” describing the quiet nourishment that transforms without making a sound. It suited his understanding of water veins and the land, but also the gentle wisdom with which he could dissolve quarrels between neighbors over a warm cup of tea.

“Feng” — peak — suggests rugged mountains and lofty heights, something worthy of looking up to. Silent yet steadfast, like a mountain standing guard over the land and over the hearts of the people.

The gentleness of rain; the strength of a mountain.

In the landscape contained within his name, he spent his brief lifetime writing a weighty answer with his life.

In this world, some people live for a very long time, yet seem to have lived only one lifetime. Others live but briefly, yet somehow seem to contain the depth of several generations.

The old man was probably one of the latter.

Looking back, he really was a rare talent.

Perhaps even Heaven was unwilling to let such a talent go to waste.

So perhaps Heaven called him back early —

The village quarrels down here had finally been settled.

There must have been a few quarrels among the immortals up there still waiting for him to mediate.

Under the Straw Hat

An old man sits quietly at the edge of the rice fields, gazing across the vast green land. The flowing water and endless fields evoke Zhangjiage, where wisdom, land, and human kindness were woven into the rhythms of rural life.