Landscape Perceptions of Supportive Environment From the Perspectives of Mind-Body Exercise

Eastern and Western cultures hold different perspectives about the relationship between man and nature. Eastern ideas are based on monism which believes man and nature should be regarded as one entity and admire the unity between environment and humanity. In contrast, Western ideas in general are based on the dualism of man and nature which are seen as inherently discrete and against each other. The distinct environmental thoughts in Eastern and Western cultures may cause the difference in environmental perceptions and leisure exercises that benefit health. Unlike the Western recreational sports focus on physical skills and environmental challenges, mind-body excerises, derived from traditional Eastern thoughts, emphasize on the interaction between mind and body as well as the harmony between human and environment. The current research tries to understand the landscape perceptions in Eastern culture by investigating mind-body exercise supportive environment. There are two studies in this research, not only examining the environmental requirements and landscape characteristics for mind-body exercises, but also analyizing the landscape percption paradigm of mind-body exercises surpportive environment. The research highlights how these traditional thoughts affect mind-body practitioners’ environmental perception. The differences and similarities between Eastern and Western perspectives of landscape percpetions are also discussed. Study 1 examines the explanatory power of monism mind-body exercise in the context of dualism western environmental theories. The results reveal that mind-body practitioners have higher requirements for their exercise environments. Landscape types, especially water-view landscape, would influence mind-body practitioners’ exercise effects. The results also show that practitioners’ environmental experiences are correlated with selected landscape metrics of different land cover types. Fragmented grass and tree patches and large continued water patches have hence positive effects on mind-body practitioners. It reveals that mind-body practitioners prefer more ecological and more natural landscape. However, there is an unexpected result on artificial structure land cover type. The area of artificial structure shows positive relationship with mind-body experience, but has negative correlation to restorativeness and landscape preference. Further studies are needed to clarify the influence of artificial structure. Study 2 approaches Eastern landscape perceptions through qualitative depth interviews with mind-body practitioners. The results extract 7 environmental qualities from interviews: ‘Safety’, ‘Oneness’, ‘Disturbance’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Circulation’, ‘Temporality’, and ‘Symbolic meaning’. Even though some viewpoints of ‘Safety’, ‘Oneness’, ‘Disturbance’ and ‘Vitality’ are similar to Western environmental perception theories, most of these qualities follows Eastern monism environmental thoughts. Particularly, ‘Circulation’, ‘Temporality’, and ‘Symbolic meaning’ are completely based on Eastern ideas. ‘Circulation’ is influenced by Feng Shui theories. ‘Temporality’ responds to the seasonal variability of nature in Confucianism. ‘Symbolic meaning’ is related to all of Eastern philosophies and traditional beliefs