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Making a killing out of the dead

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AS ONE of the so-called six evils, superstition is officially on the Chinese Communist Party's hit list of social ills. But you wouldn't know it in this southern coastal town.

Here, the authorities are not only turning a blind eye to the worship of gods, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena, they are also getting in on the act, making a killing by catering to an age-old belief in fung shui, or geomancy.

According to a tradition which dates back about 2,000 years, one's fortune is often determined by the fung shui of one's home, workshop or office. Good fung shui - literally wind and water - locks in positive forces and keeps evil elements out.

In the afterlife, the all-important thing is to have one's remains buried in a fung shui -friendly place. Otherwise, the consequences could be dire, with the spirits of the dead forced to roam the nether world and sometimes returning in anger to haunt the living.

It was this sort of mysticism which the Chinese Government vowed to wipe out when it declared superstition one of the targets of its anti-evils campaign four years ago. The other evils are prostitution, pornography, buying and selling of women and children, gambling and narcotics.

But just as the campaign was getting into swing, communist officials in Xiamen realised they were sitting on a gold mine: a hill about a 30-minute drive from the city centre which geomancers from Taiwan and Hongkong declared to have ideal fung shui conditions.

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