五行 Wuxing - The Five Elements

Have you ever wondered about how Fengshui works?

For this year's AAPI month we want to introduce you a fundamental concept that runs through all aspects of Chinese culture - Wu Xing 五行 - the Five Elements.

In the simplest terms, Wu Xing is a theory that organizes all phenomena into five master groups or patterns in nature. Each of the five groups—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water—coincides with a color, a direction, a stage of development, an internal organ, an emotion, a taste, a color, a sound, a type of person. . . etc. These 5 elements are governed by a mutual generating (相生) or overcoming (相剋) relation represented in this diagram:

Generating or overcoming do not mean one is more beneficial than the other, these two words simply describes a feed & consume relation. For example,

Water generates Wood, meaning Water will promote the growth of Wood and therefore be consumed by Wood.

Water overcomes Fire, meaning Water will repress the growth of Fire and be consumed by Fire.

So how does this matter?

In terms of human relations, you and your partner's Wu Xing elements can indicate your natural compatibility / dynamics. So if you are a Fire and your partner is Wood, your Wood partner can enhance aspects of your Fire quality, while their Wood qualities would be weakened by feeding to your Fire.

This, again, doesn't mean Wood must be good for Fire; sometimes when the Fire element is too strong, having a more counteracting element like Water might be a better choice for balance.

Fengshui uses Wuxing in a similar fashion to recalibrate the balance or dynamics of an environment.

Find out your element via this Bazi calculator here 👇 Your Day Master is your element!

Learn more about your element:

FIRE 火