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Paper short abstract:

The anthropocene arrived early in East Asia, where vast landscapes were restructured as minutely controlled irrigation systems. The longterm destruction and recreation of the landscape by human art and effort is reflected in folkloric concepts of lineage continuity as related to the watertable.

Paper long abstract:

The earliest recorded Chinese traditions of environmental change are presented as imperial water works to control watersheds and make them more productive agriculturally.

Later both folk and elite ideologies embodied practices called fengshui [literally wind and water], whose more formal name dili means literally "principles of the earth" (translates modern 'geography'). The fengshui "compass" and its "magic needle" that always aligned north/south, early attracted the attention of western visitors to the orient, which they adapted to practical navigation; but they overlooked the importance of the supporting matrix of that needle: a pool of water at the very center of the compass on which the needle floated.

In China, Fengshui reflects a system of thought that mutually correlates time and space, a kind of practical cosmology possessing instruments and formulae appropriate to calculating the effects of any place or orientation on human fate.

But Fengshuiis also a practical art, sometimes translated as 'siting' because it functions primarily for locating and orienting objects in space, especially man-made structures such as tombs or houses that literally situate human bodies within the flux of cosmic forces. This paper will describe how individuals and family lineages situate themselves in the landscape in relation to the local watertable. They do so with much effort and strong belief in the efficacy of their endeavors. It is a practical application of folk knowledge critical to the health and reproductive success of both individuals and social groups, ineluctably emmeshed in the continuous cycles of generational time.