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Published: April 11th 2009
Unicorn with fortune
Unicorn is a sort of aritificial holly animal in Chinese culture represents good luck and fortune. It was said a creature between turtle and dragon.We always try to understand and truly know about ourselves while we study the world we living in. Us, human beings, are definitely the most outstanding and incredible creatures in universe. Which is depressed the more we learn about the world the less progress we make on ourselves. Both philosophers and scientists believe that we can’t neither backward to the past nor jump to the future, present is the only space and time where we truly exist.
However there always be someone announce that they are able to witness the future world before God enlighten people in his way. They said they were born to be a God’s messenger damned to the human race, they were enlightened a sort of secret holly method to predict the future. This is a universal career since ancient, and it’s even more complicated in China.
Prediction is even considered part of our culture, frequently known as Fengshui(风水)--the directory of fortune, and Yin-yang(阴阳)--the positive and negative. There are principles to follow all from an ancient philosophy book--
(周易) and a mysterious ancient “8 Diagrams Chart”(八卦图).
is basically an ancient book tells Chinese philosophy ideas and describes the major principle of the changing of the entire universe. The so-called “8 Diagrams Chart” was said gives a highly generalization of all these principles. There are actually 2 fish in the center—a black one and a white one—maintain an ever moving condition, continuously support and against each other, just like a cat trying to catch it’s own tale.
This 2-fish logo is called “Thai-chi”, Thai-chi creates 2 positions—Yin and Yang which represent positive and negative. The four combinations of the 2 positions called “4 symbols”, and the combination of the four symbols in different order create “8 Diagrams”,(太极生两仪,两仪生四象,四象生八卦) just those stripes around the 2-fish logo. And the square computing of the “8 Diagrams” then gives 64 results. Those are actually computing of the square of even numbers.
Our ancestors believe that we are now able to tell the basic principle of the changing of entire universe by analyzing and evaluating those 64 results originally created by Thai-chi. As long as we follow this we can then always tell the right thing and being taken to the right direction.
Thereafter an originally homegrown Chinese ancient philosophy called Taoism established by master Lao-tsu about 2000 years ago came up. Some Taoism followers made this philosophy a brand new religion—also called Taoism while Buddhism was introduced into China from ancient India and becoming a threat to original Chinese culture soon. The basic idea of Taoism as a religion explained as “Taoism creates one, one creates tow, tow creates three and three creates the entire universe”.(道生一,一生二,二生三,三生万物) which is pretty similar with the principle of cause this religion is actually a mixture of both thoughts of master Lau-tsu and .
Fengshui, literally means “wind and water”, is a sort of method system to evaluate the construction or architecture position, toward direction and shapes, according to the Fengshui masters, it’s actually the correct way of nature should universally be. The Fengshui master’s job is to make sure everything strictly follows this way. People believe if it’s correctly followed plenty of fortune and good luck comes, and this happens even present days in China.
For instance, a typical standard ideal residence should be a form like this:
Basically, the landform around a residence should be mountain surrounded but not totally closed, should be water view but not just a river or stream passing by, The Temple of heaven in Beijing
It holds the south position represents "heaven" should be forested but not from all directions.
Mountains function as guards to protect the entire family from evils, the building should be positioned just in front of a mountain to the north and face to a large open land with a nice and wide view to the south, Meantime the mountains behind and on both sides also being able to hold the fortune brought by water.
Positioned to the north and towards the south(座北朝南), this is considered a correct direction. North is considered the positive position in our culture for most emperors come from north, and in Fengshui north should be higher than south, if the land form is not naturally in proper way the north position would be artificially fixed higher. If a building is totally surrounded by mountains that would be really bad, that means “nowhere to go” and the position must be a “dead point”. Meantime the mountains behind and on both sides also being able to hold the fortune brought by water.
And the water should also come from north and get slow down while flowing by the building. Water here means “fortune and descendants” which both should be continuous. If it’s just An ideal good Fengshui position
The huilding should be in front of a mountain and surrounded by flowing water. Mountains mean protection and water brings good fortune. The direction where the house towards should be open that's good for descendants. a river with pretty strong torrent that represents all the fortune gone to soon and the younger generations won’t be doing good.
In front of the building should be forested but not heavily. Usually to the left there suppose to be “Fetching fortune tree”(招财树) and “killing evil tree”(挡灾树) to the right.
Most of all, the entire environment should be in a sort of balance of harmony, could be in different form but basically the same principle. People use four legendary artificial holly animals to symbolize the four directions in an ideal Fengshui position: unicorn holds the north, phoenix holds the south, dragon holds the east and tiger holds the west. (左青龙,右白虎,前朱雀,后玄武)
Take the Temple of Heaven in Forbidden City Beijing for instance, there are actually four of’em—the Temple of Heaven, Earth, Solar and Moon. The Temple of heaven holds the south position that is in charge of “heaven”, the ancient emperors annually worship here represents a respect of the heavenly power brings proper climate condition for the coming year.
Well, since we can tell the change of the entire universe by following those principles of , a human body can be also considered a “lesser universe”, then why can’t we tell how will a one’s fate be doing? This was the start of ancient Chinese fate prediction technology.
There are 2 basic ways to do this fortune telling job—8 characters’ way(八字 ) and 6 stripes way. (六爻)
The birth year, month, day and hour of a person just formed by 8 Chinese characters. Meanwhile the four time unites—year, month, day and hour are also separately matches five directions—east, west, north, south, central and five elements—metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
Ancient Chinese believe that those are five basic elements form the world. All these five elements follow a principle as—metal creates water, water creates wood, wood creates fire, fire creates earth and earth creates metal, meantime metal kills wood, wood kills earth, earth kills water, water kills fire and fire kills metal. Then people now can tell a one’s fate by following all those attributes above separately belong to the five elements which represents a person’s birth information.
For instance, if a one’s birth infor all kills each other but no creating or survival signs then this person’s fate is considered a dead one. However if there’s too much survival infor that’s not good sign neither—means this person’s fate is too strong probably kills all including fortunes and any other good things. The best form or construction of one’s fate should be in a balance and harmony condition—not to strong not too weak.
A male and a female’s life can also be analyzed together to see if it’s gonna be a proper marriage. If their life elements all kill each other that’s bad and if female’s all kill male’s that’s the worst. The best marriage match should be man’s kill woman’s however not too much and woman’s create man’s but not much neither cause males always be in charge of the society in ancient China.
This is total ridiculous to judge a marriage. Fortunately this is long gone.
The six stripes way is also quite popular since ancient. People through three old bronze coins six times and decide each result represents Yin or Yang by reading the sides of those coins. A long stripe represents Yang—positive and tow short stripes represent Yin—negative. Then we have six stripes. The following is just the same like the 8 characters’ way.
In current China fortune teller is no A typical view of the Great Wall represents Fengshui
The further ahead looks as "black drgon to the left and white tiger to the right" symbolizes "guardians". longer a legal career, and our younger generation is now all taking modern scientific education, there suppose to be lesser and lesser choose believing in all these old traditions, but the truth is there are still some exist even in big cities. Fortune-tellers still run their business in their own way. Their business includes evaluation of one’s fate, proposals of a new building’s position or a correct way to display things in a family, a better name of a person or even a firm—some people believe a good name brings good fortune. Their customers are from different classes of our society mainly seniors, businessmen and poorly educated persons.
The items of fortune-tellers are usually a Chinese lunar calendar—the birth infor still need follow the old calendar, a campus with the 8 diagrams chart carved on—also frequently used in Fengshui evaluation cause exact direction requires, and the famous --explains what the all 64 changes of those stripes represent. They usually display all these items on the ground waiting for customers. Not a certain charge for each job, usually negotiated and depends upon the customers status. Mostly an evaluation job for one single field like an interview of a new job, a driving license exam or if it’s proper to make friend with a male or a female costs 10 yuen minimum, a general description of entire life could be 20 to 50 yuen.
To a common family, how much luck and fortune basically depends on the position of the kitchen and even the direction where the cooker towards. A Fengshui master’s job is usually to enlighten a family about their kitchen things while a new house was completed. If things going not bad this master would be well paid, could be hundreds of yuen.
In ancient those fortune masters were mostly poor people and this job is an “option of no options”, people would pick this as a job only when no better means to make life though is a must read one for all students. Most fortune-tellers would be disable persons, especially blind. So a typical portrait of a fortune-teller always be an old man with a pair of sunglasses.
However there still are some renowned Fengshui or fortune masters who make big money. If the master is well known and the customer is heavily loaded, the deal could A view of Qian Tomb
It's the tomb of Wu tse-tien, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The shape looks like the breasts of a woman. be millions of yuen. For instance a well computed and designed name for a company or letting people know the correct direction and position of a big mansion, grand super 5-star hotel or a rich ass’s private house.
Though this is an important part of our culture it’s not a mainstream in modern China’s society. Learning those traditional cultural things is absolutely an access to learn both our culture and people, as I would pretty much like to try ice cream and explore Hollywood movie industry or take a cowboy ride through wild west if I got my body in the States, different ways take to same destination.
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Tangzhi
About the article
Sir , I found your writing skill is so good . Very local .