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We were introduced to Doctor Yu, then in his 60s, by an old friend of my father.

Old Yu, as he was called by friends and intimates, was not a licensed doctor and never officially practiced medicine. Yu “retired” in his ‘20’s in 1949 and never worked a single day under the Communist regime. When the Communists took power, he hid himself at home and studied medicine, science, philosophy and literature by himself.

Old Yu was known to do amazing things; people with an unknown disease or illness were cured by him after hospitals and other doctors had given up. He did not charge people for his services, nor did he see anybody he didn’t know.

My father’s friend brought Francisca and me to meet Old Yu one day while we were in Guangzhou in the late ‘80’s. Old Yu did give the distinct impression of being a scholarly gentleman, very knowledge­able and very intellectual. We discussed Chinese medicine and philosophy at some length. He had recently become quite involved in Tibetan Buddhism and was even baptized by one of the Tibetan monks, a rare event in those days.

The second time Francisca and I went to see him alone, we invited him out for dinner, but he begged off, saying his foot hurt and he was unable to walk. So we just stayed in his small dark apartment to talk. After I had described my trip to my hometown, Zhongshan, with a fengshui master, Lok Sook and his apprentice, Frank, to find a suitable burial spot for my brother, he told me the fol­lowing stories from his own experience:

* * *

Yu was entering his first year of university in Guangzhou when he befriended a student who was already in his fourth year. This friend of his, let’s call him Xia (I was not told his name), studied commerce and graduated the following year. At the time, in the 1940’s, the War was still going on, with China fighting the Japanese. Chongqing, the wartime capital of China, needed university graduates very badly. Xia was offered a job in a bank in Chongqing, but he declined. Instead, he went to Hong Kong and stayed there for three years.

When Xia returned to Guangzhou, he went to the university and the two of them had a good talk. Yu asked Xia why he had turned down the job in Chongqing. Xia said it was just meant to be that way. During his three years in Hong Kong, he had studied fengshui and the ancient book of I Ching (The Book of Change) exten­sively. Through these, he had learned that the job in Chongqing was not meant for him and he had returned to Guangzhou for a new job which would come up in three weeks. Yu wondered aloud how Xia could be so sure. Xia simply said, “wait and see.” In three weeks time, a company came to the university to recruit banking people and Xia got the job.

* * *

Yu and Xia continued their friendship and saw each other frequently.

One day they went out and stopped at a restaurant built by a lake to have lunch. It was a beautiful restaurant and was extremely busy. After they sat down, Xia said to Yu, “can you believe that in less than a month, this restaurant will either be closed down or divided up into half for some other business?” Yu looked around and could not believe what he had just heard.

A couple months later, they went back to the same restaurant. It had then indeed been divided into two, one half for restaurant and the other side rented to a pharmacy store. Business was very quiet. They asked the waiter how had this happened and when? The waiter said more than a month ago a new restaurant across the street opened for business which offered better service and lower prices. Most of the customers of this restaurant had gone over there.

Yu was puzzled and asked Xia how he could know events before they happened. Xia replied that it was all in the calculations. He explained that not everybody could learn I Ching; in fact, only a few gifted ones could really master the book. But once mastered, events could be foretold. If a prediction was not accurate, it was not because the book I Ching was not good; it was because the person using it did not understand it enough.

* * *

Some time later, Yu and Xia were walking across the university campus and passed the resi­dence building. Yu told Xia that in this campus residence a man had died recently. Yu then tried to test Xia and asked him if he could find out where the dead man used to live. Xia thought for a little while and then started walking into the residence complex. He walked straight into the room and pointed to the bed where the dead man used to sleep. Yu was amazed.

Xia then said that on the way over he passed a room and saw a bed inside. He told Yu to inform the fellow sleeping on that bed to move to another room and not let anybody sleep on that bed, other­wise the fellow would die of heart failure in a couple of months.

Subsequently, Yu went back to the room and told the student what Xia said about his bed. This guy turned out to be an athlete, extremely healthy and strong. He did not believe he could die of heart failure in two months, so he continued to sleep on that bed. A few weeks later this student was bitten by a mosquito that carried a disease causing heart failure. He died.

* * *

There was no question that Yu believed in his friend Xia. But Yu continued to have his doubts that whatever Xia was into – be it I Ching fortune-telling or fengshui – could solve practical problems. Xia never went into any great lengths of explanation. He simply told Yu, “in times of need, just come and ask me for help, and when the event is over, you will understand.”

It was sometime in the 1950’s when Yu ran out of money for his family. He went to seek Xia’s help.

Xia told Yu that if he did something for the short term, it would not help for long term, and to solve the problem for the long term, it would not help for the short term. It was left for Yu to decide. Since he needed money badly, Yu chose to solve the immediate problem first.

Xia took Yu out to a suburb of Guangzhou and looked for graves which were scattered around the hillside. When Xia found a suitable grave, he instructed Yu to dig up his fa­ther’s bones and bring them along on a specific date.

On that day, they went to the grave Xia picked and started digging a few feet away from the grave. When they dug a few feet deep, they changed the digging direction towards the grave. Then they buried the bones of Yu’s father right next to that grave. The reason of digging a few feet away and then changing direction towards the grave was to prevent others to find out what they had done, especially the family of the existing grave.

Xia assured Yu that some money would come in, but exactly how, he did not know.

Three weeks later, Yu was called up by the local government office. He went in to see the official in charge and was told that the government decided to pay him for his properties that were expropriated a few years back. He received over RMB 10,000 for those properties. At a time when average workers only made RMB 30 a month, this amount of money lasted his family for many years.

* * *

When I last saw Old Yu, he completely believed in fengshui. He said good masters like his friend are extremely difficult to find. These masters do not practice fengshui for a living and they don’t charge people for doing it. If you meet one, you are lucky. It’s a matter of affinity. There are too many half-taught or half-learned Mr Fengshuis everywhere making money out of people. That has damaged the science of fengshui to a great extent.

I asked Yu if he would bring us to meet his friend Xia. Yu shook his head sadly and said that unfortunately Xia had died several years earlier.

A few years later Old Yu himself passed on.