Imperial Yi Jing has a forty-year history that includes the specialised study of Chue Style Six Kinships Hexagram Yi Jing. This in turn is a component skill of Chue Style Yuen Hom Feng Shui, whose lineage can be traced back to the early Chinese Imperial Courts. Taoist Great Grand Master Chue Yen was introduced in the previous article in this series, Dynastic China. Here you can read how he left China for Hong Kong, became famous for his abilities, and inspired his chosen student’s dedication to feng shui.

Feng shui came under threat during China’s Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao Zedong banned its practice. At this time many masters fled to Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Those who remained faced the death penalty if they were discovered.

At that time Hong Kong was still a British Colony and was tolerant of feng shui. Great Grand Master Chue Yen determined to make his escape across the heavily guarded border. He used a special technique of date selection to calculate the best time in order to avoid the border police and slip into Hong Kong. Great Grand Master Chue Yen waited in hiding for seven days, enduring the terrible winter weather until the right moment arrived. Because he knew that other people concealed nearby would try to follow him, thereby attracting the guards’ attention and endangering them all, he pretended he had to answer a call of nature. In this way he left the others behind and safely crossed into Hong Kong alone.

When he arrived in Hong Kong, Great Grand Master Chue Yen was penniless. Having no home, he lived in a shelter with a number of other people who clung together for warmth in the bitter weather. There were so many evacuees in his position that finding a job was extremely difficult. After the first week with no employment, he went to Temple Street to earn money by advising clients through astrology and the Yi Jing, and by giving palm and face readings.

A friend of his father found him employment as a waiter in a restaurant belonging to the Golden Gate Company. ‘Golden Gate’ was very large, owning roughly 50 restaurants and bakeries around Hong Kong. Great Grand Master Chue Yen’s new employer was aware that he had learned feng shui, so he let him wait tables during the day and work each evening in Temple Street. In return Great Grand Master Chue Yen used his skills to help his employer expand the business.

His parents continued to pressure him to marry, and many women wanted him for a husband because he was easy to talk to and unpretentious. However, Great Grand Master Chue Yen always refused marriage because he knew it wasn’t his path. His horoscope was that of a man who’d attract both wealth and women but not want to pursue either of them. As time went on he earned a great deal of money, but he gave most of it away.

A lifelong scholar, Great Grand Master Chue Yen worked extremely hard and conscientiously. His reputation spread, and by his mid-40’s he was receiving so many requests for feng shui consultations that he had to turn away many people – including a number of greedy and dishonest businessmen. He travelled throughout the Far East, where he was much sought after. He let his clients pay whatever they felt was appropriate for his services, and he used this money to make donations to the many charities who sent representatives to visit him each month. Although he knew that some of these ‘charities’ weren’t genuine, he felt that the responsibility for their behaviour rested with them. He believed that if the people who asked for money were deceitful, then life would give them suitable feedback in the form of personal misfortune.

Over the years, numerous prominent and wealthy families asked Great Grand Master Chue Yen to teach their sons feng shui, but he always refused. He was well aware that some young men might be tempted to use this high-level skill destructively. Others, while not intending to cause damage, might be unable to control their chi and could harm people accidentally. Moreover, though he wasn’t a Chan, Great Grand Master Chue Yen wanted to honour the request of his Taoist master. Great Grand Master Chan had accepted him as a student on condition that he’d find his own future protégé within the Chan family, and pass on his vast knowledge in that way.

One of Great Grand Master Chue Yen’s closest friends was a kung fu master with an enthusiastic student in his early teens. Great Grand Master Chue Yen met the teenager and told his friend, ‘This is the boy I want!’

• Great Grand Master Chue Yen Takes a Student
• Playing a Prank
• Accident at the Crossroads
• Kidnapped!

Great Grand Master Chue Yen Takes a Student

Born near Hong Kong, the future Grand Master Chue Yan Chan Kun Wah was a typical, football-playing teenager. His father had died when he was nine years old, so at the age of ten he’d taken a part-time job to help support his mother and three brothers. When he was 13½ Grand Master Chan left home for the city, where he combined hard work with study and kung fu.

When Great Grand Master Chue Yen invited him to become a feng shui student, the youngster was very reluctant. ‘I’m not interested in this. I don’t even know what it is!’ He’d planned to continue with kung fu, finish school and go on to university. Great Grand Master Chue Yen could see that the young man was clever and would be a conscientious student. However, he told Grand Master Chan that he wouldn’t support him through school and university. This was because he knew that the lad would concentrate on his formal studies at the expense of feng shui.

Great Grand Master Chue Yen was very persistent. Every day he took the boy out for a meal, and studied his facial features to learn more about him. Over and over again he asked the same question, ‘Have you made up your mind yet?’

The young man was determined to join either the military or the police. Great Grand Master Chue Yen thought back to his own early ambitions, and how he’d been advised instead to follow his true destiny – indeed his title, ‘Chue Yen’, means ‘Follow the Destiny’. He now warned the teenager that martial careers didn’t suit him: if he joined the military he’d be killed, and if he joined the police he’d never be promoted.

Gradually, Great Grand Master Chue Yen wore down the lad’s resistance. The nature-loving young man found this new career direction easier to accept because it would keep him in close touch with the natural environment, which he loved. Just before he agreed to study feng shui, Great Grand Master Chue Yen warned him that a verbal agreement could be broken, but shaking hands on it was binding. The boy thought it over, then shook the extended hand of his new master.

Great Grand Master Chue Yen took him for a celebratory dinner and told him the rules he’d have to follow. He’d have one week before beginning his training, and thereafter would have to rise very early every morning to meet his new master -- at 1 a.m.! They’d spend the small hours of each day in the mountains, where the teenager would learn feng shui in the traditional manner.

A new student must exchange presents with the master, even if the gift is only small. The boy had just 20 cents, which were enough for four bowls of rice. Following the custom, he poured tea for his master and kowtowed nine times, honouring the older man’s status. His master drank the tea, accepted the gift, and gave him a present in return. Each year thereafter, on the anniversary of the day he became a student, the boy brought his master the traditional cup of tea. As a student, Grand Master Chan wasn’t entitled to wages, but at Chinese New Year Great Grand Master Chue Yen always gave him a gift of money in a red envelope.

Playing a Prank

Great Grand Master Chue Yen treated his pupil like a son, asking to be called ‘uncle’ or ‘godfather’. Fortunately he had a sense of humour, because his protégé could be quite a prankster. One day the Grand Master decided to teach Grand Master Chan how to test the earth chi to find the strongest pulse. The stronger the pulse, the quicker the plants would grow. He broke a number of branches from a tree and pressed them here and there into the soil to take root. He told his pupil that they’d return after a few weeks, and take note of what had happened.

Grand Master Chan secretly revisited the site soon thereafter, and saw that one of the branches was already beginning to send down roots. With a mischievous smile, he pulled it up and exchanged it for one of the inert branches, then crept away.

When he and Great Grand Master Chue Yen returned to the site a week or two later, the older man immediately knew what had happened. ‘You stupid boy!’ he shouted with mock ferocity, ‘I know what you’ve done!’ He instructed Grand Master Chan to replant the saplings where they belonged. After a further week the strongest earth pulse was easy to locate, because only one sapling had green shoots.

Accident at the Crossroads

At first Grand Master Chan had no idea of the honour it was to be the only pupil of his master. He was an ‘indoor student’, meaning that he was a hand-picked, private pupil. An indoor (internal) student in a class of one was more privileged than an external student who had many classmates. Even so, he was aware of the disadvantages of being with his master every day. Whatever the weather, young Grand Master Chan had to rise exceptionally early in the morning and go into the mountains. Continuous study put him under a lot of pressure, and he was always under his master’s eye. His cries of ‘Choose someone else! Not me!’ were countered by Great Grand Master Chue Yen who said, ‘Any of the others would be more trouble to me. None of them can become good feng shui masters, so I’d be wasting my time and energy.’ Even though they’d shaken hands on their arrangement, Grand Master Chan hoped for some excuse to leave -- until he began to witness just how powerful his master’s feng shui could be.

One night, near busy crossroads in Hong Kong, Great Grand Master Chue Yen stood in silence. He was watching the sky with his palms together and his fingers pointing upward. Eventually his student grew impatient, and asked what he was doing.

‘Keep quiet! Give me ten minutes!’ came the reply, and Grand Master Chan realised that something very serious was happening.

After some time, Great Grand Master Chue Yen slowly shook his head and declared, ‘Within a week there will be a bad accident at this road junction, and seven people will die.’ Grand Master Chan was alarmed and tried to persuade his master to do something to ward off the disaster. Despondently, Great Grand Master Chue said, ‘There’s nothing anyone can do without making the situation even worse.’

Half-believing and half-disbelieving his Master, the teenager worriedly scoured all the papers for a week, looking for an accident report. When nothing had happened by the seventh day, he was relieved. Approaching his master he said, ‘There’s been no accident!’

Unmoved, Great Grand Master Chue Yen asked the time. When his pupil answered that it was noon, Great Grand Master Chue Yen tapped Grand Master Chan’s watch and reminded him that there was still half a day left.

At 6 p.m. the accident made the headlines in the evening news. The collision had taken place during the evening rush hour, and indeed seven people had been killed. Until then the crossroads had claimed one life a month, but this event prompted the road authorities to put a roundabout in its place. If Great Grand Master Chue Yen had intervened and prevented the accident, no improvements would have been made to the layout, and in time even more deaths would have resulted.

This was an important turning point, too, for the young Grand Master Chan. Up until this time, many of his lessons had gone in one ear and out the other. Now he realised that Great Grand Master Chue Yen was very powerful, and he resolved to accept the discipline of his master’s teaching and concentrate on his feng shui training.

Kidnapped!

Early in their time together, Great Grand Master Chue Yen and his teenage pupil were kidnapped by a notorious gang of arms smugglers. The gang leader demanded that Great Grand Master Chue Yen find the right day and time for his next shipment of contraband, in order to avoid the Hong Kong Harbour Patrol. He held a gun to Great Grand Master Chue Yen’s head, threatening to kill him if he didn’t cooperate. ‘Fine,’ said the feng shui master, ‘So kill me.’

Angrily, the smuggler then turned the gun on the young man and repeated his threat. Speaking calmly to his student, Great Grand Master Chue Yen asked him what he wanted to do. Shivering, the boy followed his master’s example and said, ‘Fine. So kill me.’

Perturbed, and knowing that he couldn’t do without Great Grand Master Chue Yen’s help, the gang leader showed his captives two suitcases full of money. He hoped to bribe the master into doing what he asked. However, because Great Grand Master Chue Yen had never been interested in money, the bribe was no more successful than the threats had been.

Secretly, Great Grand Master Chue Yen had been studying the gang leader’s aura, the energy field surrounding his body. He found that the smuggler was actually quite kind-hearted. He saw that the man would grow rich, and that he’d use his wealth to benefit poor people. Because of this, Great Grand Master Chue Yen agreed to help – provided certain conditions were met. He would indeed select the date and time, but in return the leader must promise this would be his last illegal trip. Any business he did in future must keep within the law. The smuggler agreed, and Great Grand Master Chue Yen asked for one hour in which to perform his Yi Jing calculations. The leader then left the room, locked in the master and his student, and posted armed guards at the door and windows.

After half an hour’s study of the Yi Jing, Great Grand Master Chue Yen had the answer he needed. He told his worried pupil that the gang had to get rid of all the arms that very day, and there was only a two-hour window when their smuggling could go undetected. The teenager nervously asked his master, ‘Are you sure that’s safe?’, and Great Grand Master Chue Yen replied, ‘Boy, trust me.’

He passed on the information to the gang leader who acted on it immediately. Within six hours the preparations had been made, the shipment had been completed, and the master and his pupil had been released unharmed. When they were safe, Great Grand Master Chue Yen warmly praised his protégé: ‘Good boy, good boy. I’m very proud of you.’ The smuggler honoured his promise to Great Grand Master Chue Yen and lived up to the benevolent potential shown in his aura.

You can read more about Grand Master Chan’s feng shui training in the next article from this series, The Making of a Master.

• 
• 
• 

I'm indebted to the following for their help in providing information, illustrations and general assistance for the articles in this series, History of Chue Style Six Kinships Hexagram Yi Jing:

• Anecdotes:
  • Grand Master Chue Yan Chan Kun Wah
  • Lana Cook
  • Tom Coxon
  • Marianne Druant
  • Aine McCaffrey
  • Kajal Sheth
  • Kaiser Shroff
  • Jillian Stott
  • Ian Wallace
  • Jared Westcott
  • Oliver Winkler
• Editorial Assistance:
  • Ivy Morgan (Qing Zhao)
• General Assistance:
  • Mike Chester
  • Pamela Forsyth
  • Maria Green
  • David Knowles
  • Arthur Tatchell
  • Kay Tom
  • Ian Wallace
  • Michael Warden
  • Linda Watt
• Calligraphy:
  • Grand Master Chue Yan Chan Kun Wah
• Illustrations:
  • Grand Master Chue Yan Chan Kun Wah
  • Val Burnham
  • Bernard Cloutier
  • Pamela Forsyth
  • Kaiser Shroff
• Ambient Music:
  • David Knowles