A Plain-English Glossary of Classical Feng Shui Terms

Terms are listed in the order you’re likely to meet them. Cantonese/Mandarin romanizations vary across books; we note common variants.

Qi (氣, “chee”; also chi, ch’i) — The animating energy classical Chinese thought sees moving through land, buildings, and bodies. In practice, treat it as the tradition’s word for the total effect of light, air, movement, orientation, and timing on a space. You don’t have to believe in a substance to observe that the effects are real.

Feng shui (風水, “wind-water”) — Literally the two forces that carry and hold qi. The discipline of arranging spaces and timing actions in harmony with environment and calendar.

Luo pan (羅盤) — The practitioner’s compass: a magnetic needle in a rotating dish ringed with the system’s reference data. Your phone compass, used per our guide, supplies the same essential measurement for a remote consultation.

Facing direction — The measured orientation of a property, in degrees. The single most important input in classical analysis; the 360° circle divides into twenty-four mountains of 15° each.

Bagua (八卦) — The eight trigrams of the Yi Jing, and by extension the eight directional sectors around a center. In classical work, sectors are fixed by compass direction — not by where your front door happens to be (that’s the Western adaptation; the difference matters).

San Yuan (三元) / Flying Stars (玄空飛星, Xuan Kong Fei Xing) — The classical school that adds time to space. Nine “stars” (numbered energies) occupy the nine palaces of a property’s chart, set by its facing and construction period, and shift annually. The dominant analytical school in Hong Kong practice.

San He (三合) — The classical school focused on landform: mountains, water, roads, and surrounding structures. Complementary to San Yuan; serious practice draws on both.

Period (運) — The 20-year cycles of the San Yuan calendar. We are in Period 9 (2024–2043), associated with the 9 Purple star and the fire element.

Natal chart (of a building) — The Flying Star chart fixed at construction (or major renovation), determined by period and facing. The building’s “birth chart.”

Annual stars / afflictions — The yearly overlay on every chart, changing each Li Chun. The major afflictions are: Tai Sui (太歲), the Grand Duke — the sector of the year’s zodiac sign, not to be disturbed or directly confronted; Sui Po (歲破), the Year Breaker, opposite Tai Sui; Wu Wang (五黃), the Five Yellow, the year’s most disruptive star; and the Three Killings (三煞). “Don’t disturb” means no renovation, drilling, or ground-breaking in that sector that year. Current positions: this year’s chart.

Li Chun (立春) — “Start of Spring,” the solar term around February 4 that begins the solar year. The boundary used in Kua and BaZi calculation — not January 1, and not Lunar New Year. Tools that ignore it miscalculate everyone born in January and early February.

Kua number (also Gua, Ming Gua 命卦) — Your personal trigram number (1–9, excluding 5), derived from birth solar year and gender, dividing people into East group and West group with four favorable and four unfavorable directions each. Calculate yours.

Eight Mansions (八宅, Ba Zhai) — The school that matches occupants’ Kua numbers to a dwelling’s orientations; the source of your favorable/unfavorable directions: Sheng Qi (vitality/success), Tian Yi (health), Yan Nian (longevity/relationships), Fu Wei (stability) — and the four to avoid, of which Jue Ming (“total loss”) is the most serious.

BaZi (八字, “eight characters”) / Four Pillars — Chinese metaphysics’ reading of a person from the year, month, day, and hour of birth — two characters each, eight in all. Covers constitution, favorable elements, and timed luck cycles. A consultation discipline in its own right (ours), and an input to personalized feng shui.

Day Master (日主) — In BaZi, the element of your day of birth — the “you” the rest of the chart is read against.

Luck pillars (大運) — BaZi’s 10-year life cycles, the basis of timing guidance.

Five elements (五行, Wu Xing) — Wood, fire, earth, metal, water: the cycle of generation and control underlying both feng shui and BaZi. “Remedies” are usually elemental adjustments — adding the element that drains or weakens an unfavorable star.

Ze Ri (擇日) / date selection — Choosing auspicious dates and hours for significant actions by cross-checking the almanac against the event and the people involved. Our smallest service.

Tong Shu (通勝) / Tong Sing — The Chinese almanac. The raw reference data; professional date selection is the interpretation layer on top of it.

Sha qi (煞氣) — “Killing breath”: harsh, rushing, or cutting energy — the T-junction aimed at a front door, the sharp building corner pointed at a window. The negative conditions much classical remediation addresses.

Ming Tang (明堂) — The “bright hall”: open space before an entrance where qi can gather. A cramped, dark, cluttered approach to a front door has no Ming Tang; a generous porch and clear path do.

Command position — The placement principle (back protected, door visible, out of the door line) for beds and desks. Shared by every school and by common sense; the starting point, not the conclusion, of classical placement.