In most English articles and books on the subject, fung shui is spelled feng shui. Both fung and feng refer to the same Chinese character, one that means 'wind'. However, fung is the Cantonese pronunciation while feng is the Putonghua pronunciation. As Cantonese is spoken predominantly in Hong Kong, the term fung shui is more widely understood here than feng shui. In Taiwan and Southeast Asia, fung shui is known by its Hokkien pronunciation hong sui.
Energy, or qi, can also be spelled chi. Indeed, the terms qigong and chi gong are both commonly used. This can be attributed to the two main systems of romanisation that are used for Chinese characters. Chi is spelled using the Wade-Giles romanisation system, developed by Thomas Francis Wade, former British ambassador in Beijing and first professor of Chinese at Cambridge University, in the 1860s. It was refined in 1912 by British diplomat Herbert Allen Giles. This system was used by European scholars of Chinese culture, resulting in terms such as tai chi entering the popular lexicon. In contrast, qi is spelled in the Hanyu Pinyin system, which was officially adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1979 and is now widely taught to foreigners who are learning Putonghua.
