Can you provide the proper pronunciation of Feng Shui? I have heard numerous variations, and would like to get a definitive pronouncement.

If I am not wrong all the variations you may have heard should be correct. This is because in the Chinese Culture, we have different types of dialects, (eg. hokkien, cantonese, teo chew, har kar etc), These dialects pronounce the words slightly differently creating the variations.

For example, lets take a surname Chen in Chinese. In Hokkien it is referred to as Tan. Etc. Both are correct, just that they are pronounced differently.

If you want to be sure you can use the simplified Chinese pronunciation used in han yu ping yin i.e Feng1 Shui3 (not any dialect form of it.).

Robert Lee
Center for Feng Shui Research
February 1999