November 13, 2021 • 40 mins
Feng Shui is an Asian concept that strives to unlock your chi by how your home or office is arranged. Or at least that's the simplified "Western" version. It's a little more complicated than that in reality. We'll unlock your chi by explaining how feng shui works in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. I hope your couch is in the right place,
and I hope the door is facing the right direction,
and I hope everything in your house is set up
exactly how it should be to bring you great peace
and relaxation tranquility. Because with the show from February, we
(00:24):
will tell you all about the ins and outs of
fung sway from our episode how feng Shui works. It
was a good one and I think we got it
mostly right, which is not bad for us, So please
enjoy it all over again. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
(00:51):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chok, Bryant uh and
Jerry's over there. So this's the stuff you should know.
URCHI is one baby cheer or key. Yeah. There's a
lot of different pronunciations that are gonna happen today. Well supposedly, Um,
it's just the different spellings same pronunciation. Q I and
(01:12):
h i are both cheap. Yeah, um, unless they're saying
kai for c h I, in which kids had something
totally different. Yeah, that's that would be the Greek letter
correct um that means energy. Are we going to pronounce
this fung shui. I usually say fung chui fungi, but
they could go either way. I mean, it depends. If
(01:33):
it's Mandarin that we're speaking, Chuck, Yeah, we should say
fong shui funui. I guess I usually say it in
Mandarin fun hui. If we're speaking in Cantonese, we would
say fung sui. Okay, So I guess we're gonna go
with the Mandarin. Alright, great, Is that okay with you? Yeah?
(01:54):
And Uh, I even looked up because I've always said
Tao is um um Yeah, that's right, right. Well, a
lot of people say there's been some confusion, so I
actually looked it up. And this author, Derrek Lenn had
a nice little thing. The first the misconception, he says,
is that the first letter in t a o daw
is an approximation of a Chinese sound that does not
(02:16):
have an exact English equivalent, because apparently in England, I
think they say Taoism. But he says that's actually not true.
There is an equivalent, and it is a d And
he said the misconception was created by an author who
had no understanding of Chinese, and that was spread around.
He did not name the author, but apparently has he
(02:36):
had high academic standing. Jathan friends in and so he said,
it is Taoism if you're speaking in English, and that
this author has uh spread a mistruth that there is
no real translation. So that was fun. Nice. There you go.
(02:56):
That was the glossary of this episode pretty much. So well,
let's talk about chi first man, because fungi is the
the practice of allowing chi to flow in the best
possible way. And she is the Chinese concept of the
energy that pervades and permeates the universe, including us, and
(03:21):
it is linked to Taoism and goes all the way
back to sixth century BC. And um, like you said,
it's uh, it's supposedly something that can't even be described
in language, so I even try. But you did a
pretty good job. I think, thanks for someone who uh
supposedly is not supposed to be able to do that.
The thing is, well, I'm obviously an incredible person. The
(03:45):
thing is, um, this chi, this energy can be blocked,
it can fall out of balance. There's it's not self
correcting necessarily. Sometimes it needs help, that's right. And so
when we inhabit an area, build a home, community palace,
what have you. We need to build it in such
(04:05):
a way that it's not going to block this chet
or it's not going to um throw things out of balance,
because we will be impacted negatively if it If that happens,
that's right, because in the East there is a long
held belief that the space we inhabit is not just
a space we live in, but we are actually connected
(04:26):
to that uh spiritually and with our energy and UM
that the way you lay out your home and the
way you build like even where you place your home
on your property, and the way you align it with
the surrounding nature. That's actually very important part of it. UM.
(04:48):
That is functual, which is translated literally as wind and water, right,
pretty neat UM. A lot of people in the West
have jumped on this train since the nineteen eighties. It's
very a popular thing to do. UM. Often misguided attempts.
UM as far as traditional functuation, Well, it's like a
completely different school. Yeah, basically, um, not basically entirely, yeah,
(05:12):
but UM. A lot of people in the West also
will poopoo this, and a lot of people in the
East poopoo it. Now apparently only about a third of
people in modern China even believe it is a thing. Um, well,
Chairman Mao rooted it out during the Cultural Revolution. Yeah,
I mean it is. It is. It's not illegal to
practice it. It is illegal though, to start a business
(05:33):
in China, modern China, where you say that you're doing functuation. Um,
but they can't really like, well, I guess it could
allow the practice. They outlaw lots of stuff from what
I've been told. But um, apparently the younger generation it's
even less than a third. It's just kind of going
the way of the Dodo. But hey, we picked up
on it in California and ran with it, you know,
(05:55):
especially in the eighties. Yeah, sure, man, that was a
super eighties thing. But lot of people poopoo it though,
as they do a lot of things in the East
and saying this is just a bunch of superstitious gobbitygook.
There is no such thing as an energy flowing through
your house or your body that needs to be aligned.
So we're not here to uh, We're just gonna explain
it to you exactly. So just save your emails people. So, um,
(06:20):
what's interesting about fung hui initially is that not not
just China, but also India lay claim to its origins.
Actually that's um. And remember I think you you did
a pretty good job defining it, but we should it's
bear saying again. Funcui is this practice of arranging your inhabit,
your your abode, your life, your workspace, UM in a
(06:46):
way that allows che to flow freely. That's right, okay, Um,
And there was there's evidence I think back three thousand
years ago, no, sorry years ago, so about BC. Yeah,
there is evidence of what the Indians call Vastu shastra,
(07:07):
which is basically a translation of building science, which is
that you should follow certain practices, use certain geometries to
allow energy to flow so that you can prosper and
not be harmed negatively. Yeah, and uh, this is um
been seeing many times. I've read a great article in uh,
(07:27):
I think it was history today by guy named Anthony
Evini called bringing the Sky down to Earth, with basically
the idea that many many cities through history have been
built with this concept in mind, that the gods bringing
the gods down to your city, like you know, he's
a Stonehenge, Beijing, Washington, d c uh and m hmm.
(07:51):
This place of Mexico that I will pronounce as d
O t hua Kan. I don't know if that's right.
It's like in myan ancient Mian city, and they all
have the same um philosophy and mine, which is apparently
if you go to Beijing, it's very famous for its layout,
as is d C. You can stand in Tienamen Square
(08:13):
and you can draw a straight line up the bell
and drum towers straight through to the Monument to the
People's Heroes, to the Masoli liam of Mao z Dong
on a perfect north south axis, like everything is planned out.
And this is I'm not saying Washington d C was
necessarily fun suid functuad, and I know that you shouldn't
(08:36):
use that as a verb, but I'm going to. But
it's it's the idea like Stonehenge, that the it's the
cities are aligned cosmically somehow with the stars in mind.
And it can be as simple as um, the entrance
to the dwelling or the city, or the burial mound
or temple or Stonehenge, whatever is aligned so that the
(09:00):
sun comes right up through it on the winter solstice,
or sure that that is the basis of fung hui,
and it does show up in other cultures across time. Yeah.
One of the one of the famous cities that was
laid out according to UM, this Indian version of it,
Vastu Shastra as um ankor Watt in Cambodia, very famous temple.
(09:26):
Those were built and I think the thirteenth century CE.
So it's not evidence that the Indians were first, but
there is evidence elsewhere that that there were Indian cities
and buildings planned out according to these and the idea
was that a couple of thousand years later, some Indian monks,
Hindu monks, made their way into maybe too bed or
(09:48):
Mongolia or China and started spreading the vast Shastra And
that's when China got their hands on it and turned
it into what we now recognize as Functui. That's one
interpretation of the origin of the whole thing. Yeah, And
and either way, what both of them are doing is
looking and taking two accounts uh the five elements earth, water, fire,
(10:11):
air and space and how they affect uh, your your
pad and um or your city, like you said, our
community or temple UM. And some people might say, well
this is you know, you might want to call it
functual but I'm just building a house, and I think
we've got this lovely mountain view, and I like the
sunrise to come up through my kitchen because I like
(10:34):
a bright kitchen. So that's how I'm going to build
my house. People that practice functional, I would say, brother,
that's functuate A T S. You know, it's just how
I like to build my house. And they, you know,
that's functual. And then they fight, that's right, they lay
wrestle or domination. So that, though, would be more Western functuation.
(10:54):
We'll get into it. But basically, the distinction between Western
functual eighties function way and classic functui um is the
amount of scientific formulae put into it, the amount of
calculations at least that are put into it, the amount
of thought. It's like, Western functual is functual light and
(11:17):
not even l I G H T like L I
T E like that kind of eighties light. Yeah, well
we might as well talk about the schools. Then it's
a great seg before we do. Though, sorry to interrupt
the segua because it was pretty good. We should say that. Um.
Most historians now believe that it was actually China that
came up with. Yeah, just the evidence is is just
(11:40):
earlier for the idea that it originated with burials in China,
Like you bury people a certain way, and you built
the burial grounds in a certain way according to functui.
So what you're saying is they leg wrestled. They won
the leg wrestle very good. So the different schools, um,
There are a lot of variations, but the three main
(12:01):
categories are the form school, which was from southern China,
and that is heavily based on the environment. Like we
were talking about classic functional, it's the oldest form and
that's when you're talking about and back then it was
practical because what they were trying to do is build
a safe place for your house to be. UM. So
(12:23):
maybe you uh set your house up with a wind
block at the mountains with that landscape that slopes or
you know, the water flowing down to you is super important,
so you may want to open your house up to that. Yeah,
but it was. It was practical though, right exactly. UM.
And another practical way of um figuring out where to
(12:43):
put your house is found in the compass school. That
one just forget about it. That's that's the one I
understand the most. Really, this one makes the most sense
to me. Yeah, because it's math and you're like weird
like that, well a little maybe a little bit. But
basically what this says is it it's kind of like
the form school where you're looking for different features of
(13:05):
the landscape to to most benefit where to build your house. Sure,
but this is this is using that same kind of
thought process but aligning it with magnetism and the stars.
To write, right, well, you're using the stars to determine magnetism,
like which way is north and south and that kind
of thing. But it does combine some math, Chinese astrology,
(13:27):
and then fung shui together and you get that what's
called the compass school, which is also very frequently known
as traditional funcui, and it includes a lot of detailed
research to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do
where your house is supposed to be facing, if it
is facing a certain way, what you can do to
(13:48):
kind of correct it. There's just a ton of thought
and calculation put into what we'll learn later is called
the Bogue map. So that's that's mostly the traditional school
is the compass school, and it's based on the idea
that magnetism dictates which way your whole jam should be
facing and oriented. Okay, and I think to the north
(14:10):
is the right way. That's the right way. Where as
far as your entry way, yes, okay uh. And then
we have, um what the Westerners have latched onto, um
the black Hat sect or that'shenmos it does or the
black sect esoteric Buddhism Functui, which was founded by Professor
(14:32):
Thomas Lynn Jun who was known UM and believed to
be an enlightened man. And um he basically came to
the West and founded this sect of Functual and it
blew up and um. Westerners love this one because it's
the one that most easily translates to an h G
TV show, right, you know, like put this plant there,
(14:55):
put a fountain there, put your door here and painted
this color, and and you're going to be wealth unsuccessful.
Don't put this there, don't put that there. It's it's
a lot of object placement. So it's easy for us
dummies over here to understand. It's basically interior design pretty much.
So we'll talk a little more about the distinction and
then what some of the commonalities they have are right
(15:18):
after this. So Chuck the black hat school. That's hilarious
(15:44):
to me, Like, why would you call it that? I
don't know. I'm sure there was a great reason I
couldn't find it anywhere. What I found instead is that
most people call it Western functure, and a lot of
functual practitioners pooh pooh Western there like this this is
some like perversion of an interpretation of functui. Yeah, it's
(16:10):
it's americanized um, and it's taught by people who don't
even necessarily aren't functual masters. Even they'll just if they
can set up a website and say pay me a
thousand dollars, I'll come and tell you where to put
your plants exactly. But Thomas lynn Un and his followers say, no,
we had we hit the basics, Like yeah, definitely, traditional
(16:31):
functuation is very detailed, very um mathematically oriented, but we're
still getting the same point across and coming to the
same conclusions and just an easier corner cutting way. That's right.
Why go to all the trouble if you can get
the same results. What's more Western than that? Good point? Uh?
(16:52):
So should we talk about um the five elements a
little bit? I guess yes, um. Like I said, there
is earth, fire, metal, water, and would. And these are
the phases through which the energy or the chi or
the key moves and um, I think this article said
it very well. It's like a sort of a game
of rock paper scissors. If you look at a creative
(17:13):
or productive um way in which these elements can interact. Uh,
you have would producing fire. Uh. Fire produces earth av
as an ash. Earth produces metal, um metal produces water,
water produces wood, metal producing water. Don't get that one,
(17:34):
mm hmm, all the rest of them, like, yeah, made sense.
My refrigerators metal and it has a water dispenser. In
the day you have it, is it? Uh? And then
you have the destructive. This is when the it's bad.
Che And if you look at the little illustration on
how stuff works on the on the first one, you
have this great circle of arrows and it's just lovely,
(17:55):
and this other one has a a nasty bunch of
arrows just laying all over one another, and it's just
a big mess. Yeah, like um would burdens earth. Yeah,
nobody wants that. Water douses fire. That's a clear one. Sure,
um metal chops would, Yes, it does. There's there's Uh. So,
the the interaction between these elements in your house, or
(18:18):
the way you arrange your house will determine whether these
phases of chi are destructive or productive in their interactions together.
And if you have too much of one thing, you
need to balance it out with something else productively exactly
the other two for destructive. Our fire melts metal and
earth blocks water like a damn. You don't want a damn.
(18:41):
You want that water flowing, baby, You know you forgot
hulk smash? Was that the other one? The final one?
And then uh, the yin yang? We can't go any
further without mentioning that. No, it's basically a really clever
conception of chi. Yeah, the opposite states of cheek, light
(19:02):
and dark, night and day, young and old man woman. Sure,
And there there's actually a way that it's supposed to
be properly represented. The white is supposed to be on
top because the white represents in part heat, and the
idea is that heat rises, but they're they're both constantly
in motion. But if you ever see a yin and
(19:23):
yang symbol displayed, though, the lighter one should be on top,
that's right, And not only heat for the white, but
masculinity and spirit and hardness and activity when it's yang
by the way. Yeah, oh yeah, we didn't point that out,
and it's not yang yang by the way. We I
used to say it that way. I think everybody did it,
(19:44):
sure at some point. And yeah, I equipped in my
early forties. Um, it's it's yin and yang. Yes. Uh.
The yen uh is femininity, femininity, matter, nighttime, coldness, softness, passivity,
and as long as you want those things balanced and
the way they just fit together in that little circle. Man,
(20:06):
it's just like it's pleasing to the eye. And I
think that's kind of says it all. You know, it
just looks nice. It's not jagged. It's like it's like
two people just cuddling up, you know, in the form
of a tattoo you wish you hadn't gotten. That's right
with some maybe Chinese characters that you don't know what
they mean any longer. Uh there, Um, well, I guess
(20:30):
we're at the bagua, right, Yeah, so this has made
sense to me. Right. Um, Remember what we're dealing with
here is she She flows through the five elements, and
you deal with the five elements in your house to
figure out where in your house, you need a little
more of one element than another, you have to construct
a bagua map. Yeah, like this is where the rubber
(20:52):
meets the road. We've been talking in esoteric terms. But
if you're like, great, dudes, what does this mean for
my freaking living room? Right, this is what it means
for your freaking living room. Yeah. And the Bagua map
is based on boxes squares. They're the basic units of
UM of functional Yeah, nine squares three by three right, uh?
(21:15):
And you take those squares and somehow this is really
clever too. But even though there's nine squares, you can
take them and turn them into a hexagon. If you
take the center square and convert that into well as center,
and then the eight boxes around it become eight sides
of a hexagon if you shave off a little here there,
(21:38):
and all of a sudden, what you have are is
a bogua. Yeah. And they can represent color as well
as UM these elements as well as for the actual
map that you're going to use, UM for laying out
your home, aspects of your life, like you know, career
(21:59):
and wealth and prosperity and love and marriage and things
like that. So there's multiple meetings and it also is
if you've seen the TV show Lost, they totally ripped
it off with the Dharma collective symbol. It is just
that is nothing more than the Bogwa grid with the
yin yang in the center right, and the yin yang
(22:20):
is frequently represented in the center is yellow, correct, yep.
Yellow is the center of the Bogua map, which is
actually the center of this nine squared box called the
low shoe square UM. And in each of the different
boxes there is a static representation. So this is this
is what you need to know about the Bogua map.
It is hexagon that the placement is always the same.
(22:46):
What you do is you take your Bagua map and
you oriented a certain way over your house, over your
your actual house or the room in your house or
something like that, and that's what changes. So if you
look at the Bogua square, the yellow is always owner
and then black, which represents water and career. UM is
always at the bottom. Okay, yeah, a k A supposed
(23:09):
to be the entrance to that room or your home, Okay, exactly, yeah,
So yeah, it's not necessarily always at the bottom. It's
always at the entrance. Well, you placed the bottom at
the entrance. So if I were to walk into my house,
you can either visualize it or you can literally draw
this uh square. You want the bottom which is uh.
(23:31):
The bottom, center is career or water. Bottom right is
helpful people and travel, bottom left is knowledge and self cultivation.
You just want to find out where your front door is.
In my case, mine is pretty much in the center
of my home, which would be career, but it could
fall if your door is on your left, it would
fall under knowledge and self cultivation. So it's it's not
(23:54):
like you move the map over to to to help
yourself out. Like where your door is where it is,
you can move it if you want. Yeah, you could
move your door. But basically the map is just supposed
to be static. Okay. So and it's static, like you said,
it's oriented um with the black on the entrance right.
No matter where the entrance is, the black is on
(24:16):
the the black is there. So when you orient your
your black box onto your entrance, what you're doing then
is using your Bogwa map to show you how you
need to change your house in order to maximize the
flow of che through it. Yeah, it's basically and by
the way, you shouldn't supposedly use any additions built, you
(24:40):
should do those separately. Okay, So if you if you're
living room has a big new addition to the lefty like,
you shouldn't even include that. So basically you're what you're
doing is you're you're dividing your space up into zones
according to this grid. And so if you were to
look at my house according to the low shoe square,
(25:00):
my TV would be in the wealth and Prosperity corner,
which is probably not good. You're gonna make money on
TV that didn't exactly happen. Uh. My couch is the
knowledge and self cultivation. I'm not sure what that means.
And then my sun room would be helpful people in travel,
(25:20):
that's what that means either. And in the center is
my coffee table. The if I wanted to have good
chea to have a yellow rug there, Yeah, but I don't,
But you should. We have some nice tile squares of
varying colors. Yes, so you can do that, chuck for
every room of your house, and you're supposed to like it,
like what you just said, Well, now I know where
(25:42):
I should put a yellow rug in my in my
house like you would want to put that in the
center of where the Bogua map falls over that room.
That's right right. Um you might also so for example, um,
if you just kind of had a dead space where
the red boxes which is for fame and reputation and
you want to fall auster that kind of thing, Man,
there's a dead space there. Would um you would put
(26:05):
something like awards there, animal related items, maybe a stuff
jackalopet or something would be a good spot for that
or a good thing for that spot. Yeah. Um. And
so you basically what you're doing is using the Bogue
map to say you're just cross referencing spots of your house.
And when you add these things and basically do interior decorating, um,
(26:27):
you can maximize a Flowchi. Yeah, if you look at
my master bedroom and bathroom, I have a bad functual
because right in that top left corner wealth and prosperity
is my toilet. Oh yeah, so supposedly you're flushing it
all down the toilet. They say you should not put
your bathroom or your toilet specifically in your wealth grid
(26:51):
right square. So what we've just described is what a
Western practitioner would do, because again, Western functional has a
lot to do with interior decorating, and so too does
to an extent um traditional functional, but a traditional functional
practitioner um, if they came to your house and they
(27:15):
used the Bagua map over your house, they would they
wouldn't just align it to an entrance, they would align
it to a magnetic direction. I'm pretty sure it's north.
I think I think you're right. But the black the
black um square in the Bogua map would be oriented
in that direction, so it wouldn't necessarily be facing your entrance.
(27:36):
And so there's this kind of It reveals this really
big distinction between Western functional and traditional functional. Whereas with
Western functional it's like, oh, we'll just line it up
to the entrance, and maybe you've got a problem with
your toilet flushing, your your fame away in your bathroom,
or your money away in your bathroom. With traditional functional,
there's no getting around it. It's once it lays over
(27:58):
your house. According to Magnetic North, what it gives you
a really clear picture of what you're going to have
to do, and you may have to tear down your
house and start over and rebuild facing the right way. Um,
it could reveal a lot of real problems with your house. UM,
and you may have to fill in more areas than others.
(28:19):
Whereas if you're just orienting each room based on its entrance,
like in Western functual, there's UM, you're not gonna find
quite as many problems in a lot more easy solutions.
That makes sense also with a traditional functional consultant who
um is basically telling you what you need to do
with your house, they're going to do research on your
(28:39):
house itself too. They're gonna find out when it was built,
when the roof wasn't closed. That's a big one too.
And then they're going to also create this Baguo map
and a chart based on Chinese astrology as well, because
time factors in a lot with traditional functual way more
than Western. Again, Western is very um, quick to the
point and just put some stuff here, like another example
(29:03):
that people criticize Western functual and kind of point like
it's just basically UM. Interior design is plaid is considered
a form of the wood element. So if you have
too much plaid, like a plague couch in a room,
you might need to encounter that with like a little
fountain or something like that. But where where did the
(29:24):
idea that plaid was would come from. It's definitely not
traditional Chinese. No, I don't think so. No, I don't
think they have plaid in China, do they? I don't
think so. But that raises another thing to another criticism
of Western functual is that very frequently um functually consultants
in the West will be like, oh, you just need
to add a food dog, you know, like that kind
(29:46):
of lion looking dog. You need to add some you've
seen a million times. Was it like a little statue
or something, Or you need to add like some Chinese
pottery or dragon mural or something, And traditional function practitioners
are like, yeah, arc ounce, but um it doesn't have
to be Chinese. Right, So if you're consultant is selling
you Chinese art and this is right, this is essential. Yeah,
(30:10):
that's not that's not correct with the red flag. Yeah, alright,
Well we have some more um uh tips from fung
shui experts that we'll get to right after this. All right,
(30:43):
so we're talking the bagua grid. Like we said, it's
all represented with the different colors. Those colors also correspond
to numbers, and they also correspond to aspects of your
life or chi it sounds confusing. It kind of is.
Let's just say it. But here are some things that
functual A practitioners say will help unlock that q um. Black,
(31:09):
which is your career. Uh, they say a fountain or
a mirror might be a good thing to have. Their blue,
which is skills and wisdom. Maybe that's where you put
your computer workstation or your library. Okay, yeah, books, yeah, books,
green your family Maybe that's where you want to put
your family photos and you want to arrange them nicely too. Yeah.
(31:31):
Supposedly if you have your family photos out of order
in your green section, Um, you're gonna have misbehaving kids. Yeah.
Actually that's the white zone. That's children. Oh sorry, that's okay,
but yeah, that's that's that's what they say. If you
want good kids, keep those photos nice. Right. I'm not
sure about that one. Uh. Purple is your prosperity zone,
(31:53):
and that's where you want to have it, says healthy plants.
Don't put your dying plants there, or sailing ships. I
guess that's just um sailing towards prosperity. I guess maybe
don't don't put a painting of a sinking ship. No,
that that's that is western function there. Yeah, sure that
(32:15):
you don't like that. That whole kind of psychology would
be detrimental to the health of the area. Yeah, why
would you want that anyway though? Like good painted sinking
ship Yeah, um, a depressed sea captain probably guess would
be my guess. Red is famine reputation. That's where you
want to put your various awards. Um so yeah, we
(32:39):
got a couple of those, and your jackalope head your
jackalope yeah, animal animal related things. You're right, we should
lay out our next studio like according to Functui dud,
we totally should you know? I just noticed is red
supposedly is what you want to put on the back
of your chair to block a badge. And we've got
a huge red foam thing in between us and Jerry.
(32:59):
Oh so we gotta get rid of that. Oh I
was gonna say, that explains why I've been able to
put up with her cheeks for so long. Now, Jerry,
she has the good flow our way, So we need
to open that up in our new place. Um, pink
love and relationships, that's where you want to put maybe
photos of your family or paired items. Again with the
(33:20):
family photos Yeah, I don't have that many family photos.
Paradig items that's cute, that makes sense, like bookends, salt
and pepper shakers. Uh, boxing gloves, Um, that's where you
hang your boxing gloves. Remember Joe Garden from The Onion
(33:41):
with those giant boxing gloves he had. Yeah, those were
so much fun. He had a thing where he just
wanted to get as many people to pose with those
as possible and take a swing at him. Uh. White
what we already mentioned was children or creativity. That's where
you might want to put some art or pictures of
your little brats. Um gray travel um or helpful people.
(34:02):
But you're souvenirs from Disneyland there, and not just Disneyland
any trip you've taken. Sure the Disney company wants you
to just put Disney souvenirs there though. Uh and yellow finally,
health um pottery and stone objects will help unlock your
chee there. Yeah. But speaking of Disney, Hong Kong, Disneyland,
they apparently had a functual expert consulted, and uh they
(34:24):
made some changes because of that consultation. Yeah, probably that
was probably a nice paying gig. The Yeah, you know
that consulting was like good che yeah, or they were
saying e jing. Anyway, the they opened on September twelve
because they were told that was a lucky day according
(34:44):
to the astrological chart. Their consultant drew up. Yep. They
changed the entrance by twelve degrees. Obviously it was a
traditional um functual practitioner uh, and added some boulders. Apparently
one of the restaurants has a projection of a fire,
which to me that wouldn't count, but maybe it does.
(35:06):
That's gonna that seems pretty Western to me because one
of the big bases of Western function is psychology. If
traditional function is based on magnetism and astrology, Western functuali
is based on psychology. And it is as simple as
you don't put a painting of a sinking ship in
(35:27):
the office of a business that's struggling to stay afloat
because the mind makes those kind of associations and it
messes up your cheek. That's right, um, And a lot
of this stuff as well, Like we said, um, I think,
like you just mentioned maybe like it just seems like
common sense. Um, Like a horseshoe shaped building that opens
(35:47):
up into a courtyard, it's gonna feel good, it's pleasing. Um.
Functually practitioners say that's energy. Or hey, don't don't build
a house on a dead end street, um, because it
blocks the CHI. I had a friend who lived at
a dead end street and it just felt like every
time I went over there, I felt closed in and
sort of weird. Did you end up killing his whole family?
(36:10):
He did not. He did move though. Um they were saved.
They were thanks to him moving. Um your office A
lot of a lot of times, he stays, people will
um their new offices. They will take this into account.
Some very famous people like Richard Branson and Donald Trump
have enlisted the help of functual experts to design their
(36:31):
offices because they want that chi and ergo money flowing. Yeah,
you don't have to be a Richard Branson or Donald
Trump to arrange your office, whether it's a cubicle or
what have you. UM, so that you can maximize the
flow of chief if you want to do a little
messing around. Supposedly, the one one one thing that you
want to ensure as much as possible is that you're
(36:53):
facing the entrance to your office. Yes, UM, that way
the chief flows correct towards you, not towards your back. Yeah,
you don't want the cheat you're back. No, remember the
Southern China um, the Southern China functui placement, the form school. Yeah. Um,
like you you put your the entrance of your house
(37:17):
is facing away from a hill, so the back of
your house backs up to a hill, so the chief
flows correctly. Same thing. You want the entrance to your
office to be flowing towards you, facing it if you
If you can't do that, then you just put up
a mirror so you can reflect the cheat towards you. Yeah,
that makes sense. Like you said, you want to put
something red on the back of your chair to block
(37:38):
the chief from your back. Yeah. Actually, now that I
think about it, this isn't so bad in here because
the chief, the red is to our side. It's coming
in that door and bouncing off of that right on us.
So Jerry is really the one is getting the short
end of the cheese stick. Here, a short short into
the cheese stick. Um, what else can you do? You
can put a fountain or a plant. Um, honestly, water
(37:59):
and would uh And they said even the picture of
a waterfall in your cubicle could help your chi. Your
workplace Chi. Again, there's a lot of disagreement about what
works and what doesn't with traditional FUNCTIONI it's like you
need to know where magnetic north is and you need
to orient your building according to that, and whatever you
(38:20):
do inside is almost irrelevant. Yeah, get rid of those
fluorescent lights though they all agree on that. Sure, I
know anything about cheet to know that fluorescent lights are
terrible for you? Agreed? Do you anything else? No, there's
it's a pretty good overview, I think, right. Sure, you
feel good about it. I feel better than I expected.
(38:41):
How's your ch It's fine? Yeah, all right, it's it's
not out of balance, it's not jumping for joy. It's
just it is today. Got you. Uh. If you want
to know more about chi or fung shui or any
stuff like that, you can type those words in the
search part how stuff works. And since I said that,
it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this
(39:05):
G E D success story. Hey, guys, got my G
E D way back in six so I could attend college.
Back then, the University of Illinois Chicago co Flames allowed
you and as a freshman, if you graduated high school
and had a pulse they called the student body. After
the first year, though you didn't perform, you're out. I
did reasonably well there and ultimately ended up at the
(39:27):
University of Cambridge in England, got my pH d in
archaeology there and worked in the field for a few years. UM.
I am now a stay at home dad of three boys,
five three and one living in uh Karl's Ruhe, Germany.
One of the things I love most about the American
education system is that a guy who dropped out of
high school at seventeen still had the opportunity to attend
(39:48):
college and ultimately end up with a PhD from one
of the greatest universities in the world. Thanks for another
great episode, guys. Has been listening since two thousand eight
and actually remember the before Chuck days. Uh and that
is from Chris, So way to go, Chris, Way to
go Chris. That is pretty awesome story. G d archaeologist,
(40:09):
stay at home dad five three and one. Sounds like
he's doing it right. Nice job, Chris. If you want
to let us know about your personal success story, we
love hearing about those. You can tweet to us at
s Y s K Podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff
Works dot com, and, as always, join us at our
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(40:34):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart
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favorite shows.
Hi, everybody. I hope your couch is in the right place,
and I hope the door is facing the right direction,
and I hope everything in your house is set up
exactly how it should be to bring you great peace
and relaxation tranquility. Because with the show from February, we
(00:24):
will tell you all about the ins and outs of
fung sway from our episode how feng Shui works. It
was a good one and I think we got it
mostly right, which is not bad for us, So please
enjoy it all over again. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
(00:51):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chok, Bryant uh and
Jerry's over there. So this's the stuff you should know.
URCHI is one baby cheer or key. Yeah. There's a
lot of different pronunciations that are gonna happen today. Well supposedly, Um,
it's just the different spellings same pronunciation. Q I and
(01:12):
h i are both cheap. Yeah, um, unless they're saying
kai for c h I, in which kids had something
totally different. Yeah, that's that would be the Greek letter
correct um that means energy. Are we going to pronounce
this fung shui. I usually say fung chui fungi, but
they could go either way. I mean, it depends. If
(01:33):
it's Mandarin that we're speaking, Chuck, Yeah, we should say
fong shui funui. I guess I usually say it in
Mandarin fun hui. If we're speaking in Cantonese, we would
say fung sui. Okay, So I guess we're gonna go
with the Mandarin. Alright, great, Is that okay with you? Yeah?
(01:54):
And Uh, I even looked up because I've always said
Tao is um um Yeah, that's right, right. Well, a
lot of people say there's been some confusion, so I
actually looked it up. And this author, Derrek Lenn had
a nice little thing. The first the misconception, he says,
is that the first letter in t a o daw
is an approximation of a Chinese sound that does not
(02:16):
have an exact English equivalent, because apparently in England, I
think they say Taoism. But he says that's actually not true.
There is an equivalent, and it is a d And
he said the misconception was created by an author who
had no understanding of Chinese, and that was spread around.
He did not name the author, but apparently has he
(02:36):
had high academic standing. Jathan friends in and so he said,
it is Taoism if you're speaking in English, and that
this author has uh spread a mistruth that there is
no real translation. So that was fun. Nice. There you go.
(02:56):
That was the glossary of this episode pretty much. So well,
let's talk about chi first man, because fungi is the
the practice of allowing chi to flow in the best
possible way. And she is the Chinese concept of the
energy that pervades and permeates the universe, including us, and
(03:21):
it is linked to Taoism and goes all the way
back to sixth century BC. And um, like you said,
it's uh, it's supposedly something that can't even be described
in language, so I even try. But you did a
pretty good job. I think, thanks for someone who uh
supposedly is not supposed to be able to do that.
The thing is, well, I'm obviously an incredible person. The
(03:45):
thing is, um, this chi, this energy can be blocked,
it can fall out of balance. There's it's not self
correcting necessarily. Sometimes it needs help, that's right. And so
when we inhabit an area, build a home, community palace,
what have you. We need to build it in such
(04:05):
a way that it's not going to block this chet
or it's not going to um throw things out of balance,
because we will be impacted negatively if it If that happens,
that's right, because in the East there is a long
held belief that the space we inhabit is not just
a space we live in, but we are actually connected
(04:26):
to that uh spiritually and with our energy and UM
that the way you lay out your home and the
way you build like even where you place your home
on your property, and the way you align it with
the surrounding nature. That's actually very important part of it. UM.
(04:48):
That is functual, which is translated literally as wind and water, right,
pretty neat UM. A lot of people in the West
have jumped on this train since the nineteen eighties. It's
very a popular thing to do. UM. Often misguided attempts.
UM as far as traditional functuation, Well, it's like a
completely different school. Yeah, basically, um, not basically entirely, yeah,
(05:12):
but UM. A lot of people in the West also
will poopoo this, and a lot of people in the
East poopoo it. Now apparently only about a third of
people in modern China even believe it is a thing. Um, well,
Chairman Mao rooted it out during the Cultural Revolution. Yeah,
I mean it is. It is. It's not illegal to
practice it. It is illegal though, to start a business
(05:33):
in China, modern China, where you say that you're doing functuation. Um,
but they can't really like, well, I guess it could
allow the practice. They outlaw lots of stuff from what
I've been told. But um, apparently the younger generation it's
even less than a third. It's just kind of going
the way of the Dodo. But hey, we picked up
on it in California and ran with it, you know,
(05:55):
especially in the eighties. Yeah, sure, man, that was a
super eighties thing. But lot of people poopoo it though,
as they do a lot of things in the East
and saying this is just a bunch of superstitious gobbitygook.
There is no such thing as an energy flowing through
your house or your body that needs to be aligned.
So we're not here to uh, We're just gonna explain
it to you exactly. So just save your emails people. So, um,
(06:20):
what's interesting about fung hui initially is that not not
just China, but also India lay claim to its origins.
Actually that's um. And remember I think you you did
a pretty good job defining it, but we should it's
bear saying again. Funcui is this practice of arranging your inhabit,
your your abode, your life, your workspace, UM in a
(06:46):
way that allows che to flow freely. That's right, okay, Um,
And there was there's evidence I think back three thousand
years ago, no, sorry years ago, so about BC. Yeah,
there is evidence of what the Indians call Vastu shastra,
(07:07):
which is basically a translation of building science, which is
that you should follow certain practices, use certain geometries to
allow energy to flow so that you can prosper and
not be harmed negatively. Yeah, and uh, this is um
been seeing many times. I've read a great article in uh,
(07:27):
I think it was history today by guy named Anthony
Evini called bringing the Sky down to Earth, with basically
the idea that many many cities through history have been
built with this concept in mind, that the gods bringing
the gods down to your city, like you know, he's
a Stonehenge, Beijing, Washington, d c uh and m hmm.
(07:51):
This place of Mexico that I will pronounce as d
O t hua Kan. I don't know if that's right.
It's like in myan ancient Mian city, and they all
have the same um philosophy and mine, which is apparently
if you go to Beijing, it's very famous for its layout,
as is d C. You can stand in Tienamen Square
(08:13):
and you can draw a straight line up the bell
and drum towers straight through to the Monument to the
People's Heroes, to the Masoli liam of Mao z Dong
on a perfect north south axis, like everything is planned out.
And this is I'm not saying Washington d C was
necessarily fun suid functuad, and I know that you shouldn't
(08:36):
use that as a verb, but I'm going to. But
it's it's the idea like Stonehenge, that the it's the
cities are aligned cosmically somehow with the stars in mind.
And it can be as simple as um, the entrance
to the dwelling or the city, or the burial mound
or temple or Stonehenge, whatever is aligned so that the
(09:00):
sun comes right up through it on the winter solstice,
or sure that that is the basis of fung hui,
and it does show up in other cultures across time. Yeah.
One of the one of the famous cities that was
laid out according to UM, this Indian version of it,
Vastu Shastra as um ankor Watt in Cambodia, very famous temple.
(09:26):
Those were built and I think the thirteenth century CE.
So it's not evidence that the Indians were first, but
there is evidence elsewhere that that there were Indian cities
and buildings planned out according to these and the idea
was that a couple of thousand years later, some Indian monks,
Hindu monks, made their way into maybe too bed or
(09:48):
Mongolia or China and started spreading the vast Shastra And
that's when China got their hands on it and turned
it into what we now recognize as Functui. That's one
interpretation of the origin of the whole thing. Yeah, And
and either way, what both of them are doing is
looking and taking two accounts uh the five elements earth, water, fire,
(10:11):
air and space and how they affect uh, your your
pad and um or your city, like you said, our
community or temple UM. And some people might say, well
this is you know, you might want to call it
functual but I'm just building a house, and I think
we've got this lovely mountain view, and I like the
sunrise to come up through my kitchen because I like
(10:34):
a bright kitchen. So that's how I'm going to build
my house. People that practice functional, I would say, brother,
that's functuate A T S. You know, it's just how
I like to build my house. And they, you know,
that's functual. And then they fight, that's right, they lay
wrestle or domination. So that, though, would be more Western functuation.
(10:54):
We'll get into it. But basically, the distinction between Western
functual eighties function way and classic functui um is the
amount of scientific formulae put into it, the amount of
calculations at least that are put into it, the amount
of thought. It's like, Western functual is functual light and
(11:17):
not even l I G H T like L I
T E like that kind of eighties light. Yeah, well
we might as well talk about the schools. Then it's
a great seg before we do. Though, sorry to interrupt
the segua because it was pretty good. We should say that. Um.
Most historians now believe that it was actually China that
came up with. Yeah, just the evidence is is just
(11:40):
earlier for the idea that it originated with burials in China,
Like you bury people a certain way, and you built
the burial grounds in a certain way according to functui.
So what you're saying is they leg wrestled. They won
the leg wrestle very good. So the different schools, um,
There are a lot of variations, but the three main
(12:01):
categories are the form school, which was from southern China,
and that is heavily based on the environment. Like we
were talking about classic functional, it's the oldest form and
that's when you're talking about and back then it was
practical because what they were trying to do is build
a safe place for your house to be. UM. So
(12:23):
maybe you uh set your house up with a wind
block at the mountains with that landscape that slopes or
you know, the water flowing down to you is super important,
so you may want to open your house up to that. Yeah,
but it was. It was practical though, right exactly. UM.
And another practical way of um figuring out where to
(12:43):
put your house is found in the compass school. That
one just forget about it. That's that's the one I
understand the most. Really, this one makes the most sense
to me. Yeah, because it's math and you're like weird
like that, well a little maybe a little bit. But
basically what this says is it it's kind of like
the form school where you're looking for different features of
(13:05):
the landscape to to most benefit where to build your house. Sure,
but this is this is using that same kind of
thought process but aligning it with magnetism and the stars.
To write, right, well, you're using the stars to determine magnetism,
like which way is north and south and that kind
of thing. But it does combine some math, Chinese astrology,
(13:27):
and then fung shui together and you get that what's
called the compass school, which is also very frequently known
as traditional funcui, and it includes a lot of detailed
research to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do
where your house is supposed to be facing, if it
is facing a certain way, what you can do to
(13:48):
kind of correct it. There's just a ton of thought
and calculation put into what we'll learn later is called
the Bogue map. So that's that's mostly the traditional school
is the compass school, and it's based on the idea
that magnetism dictates which way your whole jam should be
facing and oriented. Okay, and I think to the north
(14:10):
is the right way. That's the right way. Where as
far as your entry way, yes, okay uh. And then
we have, um what the Westerners have latched onto, um
the black Hat sect or that'shenmos it does or the
black sect esoteric Buddhism Functui, which was founded by Professor
(14:32):
Thomas Lynn Jun who was known UM and believed to
be an enlightened man. And um he basically came to
the West and founded this sect of Functual and it
blew up and um. Westerners love this one because it's
the one that most easily translates to an h G
TV show, right, you know, like put this plant there,
(14:55):
put a fountain there, put your door here and painted
this color, and and you're going to be wealth unsuccessful.
Don't put this there, don't put that there. It's it's
a lot of object placement. So it's easy for us
dummies over here to understand. It's basically interior design pretty much.
So we'll talk a little more about the distinction and
then what some of the commonalities they have are right
(15:18):
after this. So Chuck the black hat school. That's hilarious
(15:44):
to me, Like, why would you call it that? I
don't know. I'm sure there was a great reason I
couldn't find it anywhere. What I found instead is that
most people call it Western functure, and a lot of
functual practitioners pooh pooh Western there like this this is
some like perversion of an interpretation of functui. Yeah, it's
(16:10):
it's americanized um, and it's taught by people who don't
even necessarily aren't functual masters. Even they'll just if they
can set up a website and say pay me a
thousand dollars, I'll come and tell you where to put
your plants exactly. But Thomas lynn Un and his followers say, no,
we had we hit the basics, Like yeah, definitely, traditional
(16:31):
functuation is very detailed, very um mathematically oriented, but we're
still getting the same point across and coming to the
same conclusions and just an easier corner cutting way. That's right.
Why go to all the trouble if you can get
the same results. What's more Western than that? Good point? Uh?
(16:52):
So should we talk about um the five elements a
little bit? I guess yes, um. Like I said, there
is earth, fire, metal, water, and would. And these are
the phases through which the energy or the chi or
the key moves and um, I think this article said
it very well. It's like a sort of a game
of rock paper scissors. If you look at a creative
(17:13):
or productive um way in which these elements can interact. Uh,
you have would producing fire. Uh. Fire produces earth av
as an ash. Earth produces metal, um metal produces water,
water produces wood, metal producing water. Don't get that one,
(17:34):
mm hmm, all the rest of them, like, yeah, made sense.
My refrigerators metal and it has a water dispenser. In
the day you have it, is it? Uh? And then
you have the destructive. This is when the it's bad.
Che And if you look at the little illustration on
how stuff works on the on the first one, you
have this great circle of arrows and it's just lovely,
(17:55):
and this other one has a a nasty bunch of
arrows just laying all over one another, and it's just
a big mess. Yeah, like um would burdens earth. Yeah,
nobody wants that. Water douses fire. That's a clear one. Sure,
um metal chops would, Yes, it does. There's there's Uh. So,
the the interaction between these elements in your house, or
(18:18):
the way you arrange your house will determine whether these
phases of chi are destructive or productive in their interactions together.
And if you have too much of one thing, you
need to balance it out with something else productively exactly
the other two for destructive. Our fire melts metal and
earth blocks water like a damn. You don't want a damn.
(18:41):
You want that water flowing, baby, You know you forgot
hulk smash? Was that the other one? The final one?
And then uh, the yin yang? We can't go any
further without mentioning that. No, it's basically a really clever
conception of chi. Yeah, the opposite states of cheek, light
(19:02):
and dark, night and day, young and old man woman. Sure,
And there there's actually a way that it's supposed to
be properly represented. The white is supposed to be on
top because the white represents in part heat, and the
idea is that heat rises, but they're they're both constantly
in motion. But if you ever see a yin and
(19:23):
yang symbol displayed, though, the lighter one should be on top,
that's right, And not only heat for the white, but
masculinity and spirit and hardness and activity when it's yang
by the way. Yeah, oh yeah, we didn't point that out,
and it's not yang yang by the way. We I
used to say it that way. I think everybody did it,
(19:44):
sure at some point. And yeah, I equipped in my
early forties. Um, it's it's yin and yang. Yes. Uh.
The yen uh is femininity, femininity, matter, nighttime, coldness, softness, passivity,
and as long as you want those things balanced and
the way they just fit together in that little circle. Man,
(20:06):
it's just like it's pleasing to the eye. And I
think that's kind of says it all. You know, it
just looks nice. It's not jagged. It's like it's like
two people just cuddling up, you know, in the form
of a tattoo you wish you hadn't gotten. That's right
with some maybe Chinese characters that you don't know what
they mean any longer. Uh there, Um, well, I guess
(20:30):
we're at the bagua, right, Yeah, so this has made
sense to me. Right. Um, Remember what we're dealing with
here is she She flows through the five elements, and
you deal with the five elements in your house to
figure out where in your house, you need a little
more of one element than another, you have to construct
a bagua map. Yeah, like this is where the rubber
(20:52):
meets the road. We've been talking in esoteric terms. But
if you're like, great, dudes, what does this mean for
my freaking living room? Right, this is what it means
for your freaking living room. Yeah. And the Bagua map
is based on boxes squares. They're the basic units of
UM of functional Yeah, nine squares three by three right, uh?
(21:15):
And you take those squares and somehow this is really
clever too. But even though there's nine squares, you can
take them and turn them into a hexagon. If you
take the center square and convert that into well as center,
and then the eight boxes around it become eight sides
of a hexagon if you shave off a little here there,
(21:38):
and all of a sudden, what you have are is
a bogua. Yeah. And they can represent color as well
as UM these elements as well as for the actual
map that you're going to use, UM for laying out
your home, aspects of your life, like you know, career
(21:59):
and wealth and prosperity and love and marriage and things
like that. So there's multiple meetings and it also is
if you've seen the TV show Lost, they totally ripped
it off with the Dharma collective symbol. It is just
that is nothing more than the Bogwa grid with the
yin yang in the center right, and the yin yang
(22:20):
is frequently represented in the center is yellow, correct, yep.
Yellow is the center of the Bogua map, which is
actually the center of this nine squared box called the
low shoe square UM. And in each of the different
boxes there is a static representation. So this is this
is what you need to know about the Bogua map.
It is hexagon that the placement is always the same.
(22:46):
What you do is you take your Bagua map and
you oriented a certain way over your house, over your
your actual house or the room in your house or
something like that, and that's what changes. So if you
look at the Bogua square, the yellow is always owner
and then black, which represents water and career. UM is
always at the bottom. Okay, yeah, a k A supposed
(23:09):
to be the entrance to that room or your home, Okay, exactly, yeah,
So yeah, it's not necessarily always at the bottom. It's
always at the entrance. Well, you placed the bottom at
the entrance. So if I were to walk into my house,
you can either visualize it or you can literally draw
this uh square. You want the bottom which is uh.
(23:31):
The bottom, center is career or water. Bottom right is
helpful people and travel, bottom left is knowledge and self cultivation.
You just want to find out where your front door is.
In my case, mine is pretty much in the center
of my home, which would be career, but it could
fall if your door is on your left, it would
fall under knowledge and self cultivation. So it's it's not
(23:54):
like you move the map over to to to help
yourself out. Like where your door is where it is,
you can move it if you want. Yeah, you could
move your door. But basically the map is just supposed
to be static. Okay. So and it's static, like you said,
it's oriented um with the black on the entrance right.
No matter where the entrance is, the black is on
(24:16):
the the black is there. So when you orient your
your black box onto your entrance, what you're doing then
is using your Bogwa map to show you how you
need to change your house in order to maximize the
flow of che through it. Yeah, it's basically and by
the way, you shouldn't supposedly use any additions built, you
(24:40):
should do those separately. Okay, So if you if you're
living room has a big new addition to the lefty like,
you shouldn't even include that. So basically you're what you're
doing is you're you're dividing your space up into zones
according to this grid. And so if you were to
look at my house according to the low shoe square,
(25:00):
my TV would be in the wealth and Prosperity corner,
which is probably not good. You're gonna make money on
TV that didn't exactly happen. Uh. My couch is the
knowledge and self cultivation. I'm not sure what that means.
And then my sun room would be helpful people in travel,
(25:20):
that's what that means either. And in the center is
my coffee table. The if I wanted to have good
chea to have a yellow rug there, Yeah, but I don't,
But you should. We have some nice tile squares of
varying colors. Yes, so you can do that, chuck for
every room of your house, and you're supposed to like it,
like what you just said, Well, now I know where
(25:42):
I should put a yellow rug in my in my
house like you would want to put that in the
center of where the Bogua map falls over that room.
That's right right. Um you might also so for example, um,
if you just kind of had a dead space where
the red boxes which is for fame and reputation and
you want to fall auster that kind of thing, Man,
there's a dead space there. Would um you would put
(26:05):
something like awards there, animal related items, maybe a stuff
jackalopet or something would be a good spot for that
or a good thing for that spot. Yeah. Um. And
so you basically what you're doing is using the Bogue
map to say you're just cross referencing spots of your house.
And when you add these things and basically do interior decorating, um,
(26:27):
you can maximize a Flowchi. Yeah, if you look at
my master bedroom and bathroom, I have a bad functual
because right in that top left corner wealth and prosperity
is my toilet. Oh yeah, so supposedly you're flushing it
all down the toilet. They say you should not put
your bathroom or your toilet specifically in your wealth grid
(26:51):
right square. So what we've just described is what a
Western practitioner would do, because again, Western functional has a
lot to do with interior decorating, and so too does
to an extent um traditional functional, but a traditional functional
practitioner um, if they came to your house and they
(27:15):
used the Bagua map over your house, they would they
wouldn't just align it to an entrance, they would align
it to a magnetic direction. I'm pretty sure it's north.
I think I think you're right. But the black the
black um square in the Bogua map would be oriented
in that direction, so it wouldn't necessarily be facing your entrance.
(27:36):
And so there's this kind of It reveals this really
big distinction between Western functional and traditional functional. Whereas with
Western functional it's like, oh, we'll just line it up
to the entrance, and maybe you've got a problem with
your toilet flushing, your your fame away in your bathroom,
or your money away in your bathroom. With traditional functional,
there's no getting around it. It's once it lays over
(27:58):
your house. According to Magnetic North, what it gives you
a really clear picture of what you're going to have
to do, and you may have to tear down your
house and start over and rebuild facing the right way. Um,
it could reveal a lot of real problems with your house. UM,
and you may have to fill in more areas than others.
(28:19):
Whereas if you're just orienting each room based on its entrance,
like in Western functual, there's UM, you're not gonna find
quite as many problems in a lot more easy solutions.
That makes sense also with a traditional functional consultant who
um is basically telling you what you need to do
with your house, they're going to do research on your
(28:39):
house itself too. They're gonna find out when it was built,
when the roof wasn't closed. That's a big one too.
And then they're going to also create this Baguo map
and a chart based on Chinese astrology as well, because
time factors in a lot with traditional functual way more
than Western. Again, Western is very um, quick to the
point and just put some stuff here, like another example
(29:03):
that people criticize Western functual and kind of point like
it's just basically UM. Interior design is plaid is considered
a form of the wood element. So if you have
too much plaid, like a plague couch in a room,
you might need to encounter that with like a little
fountain or something like that. But where where did the
(29:24):
idea that plaid was would come from. It's definitely not
traditional Chinese. No, I don't think so. No, I don't
think they have plaid in China, do they? I don't
think so. But that raises another thing to another criticism
of Western functual is that very frequently um functually consultants
in the West will be like, oh, you just need
to add a food dog, you know, like that kind
(29:46):
of lion looking dog. You need to add some you've
seen a million times. Was it like a little statue
or something, Or you need to add like some Chinese
pottery or dragon mural or something, And traditional function practitioners
are like, yeah, arc ounce, but um it doesn't have
to be Chinese. Right, So if you're consultant is selling
you Chinese art and this is right, this is essential. Yeah,
(30:10):
that's not that's not correct with the red flag. Yeah, alright,
Well we have some more um uh tips from fung
shui experts that we'll get to right after this. All right,
(30:43):
so we're talking the bagua grid. Like we said, it's
all represented with the different colors. Those colors also correspond
to numbers, and they also correspond to aspects of your
life or chi it sounds confusing. It kind of is.
Let's just say it. But here are some things that
functual A practitioners say will help unlock that q um. Black,
(31:09):
which is your career. Uh, they say a fountain or
a mirror might be a good thing to have. Their blue,
which is skills and wisdom. Maybe that's where you put
your computer workstation or your library. Okay, yeah, books, yeah, books,
green your family Maybe that's where you want to put
your family photos and you want to arrange them nicely too. Yeah.
(31:31):
Supposedly if you have your family photos out of order
in your green section, Um, you're gonna have misbehaving kids. Yeah.
Actually that's the white zone. That's children. Oh sorry, that's okay,
but yeah, that's that's that's what they say. If you
want good kids, keep those photos nice. Right. I'm not
sure about that one. Uh. Purple is your prosperity zone,
(31:53):
and that's where you want to have it, says healthy plants.
Don't put your dying plants there, or sailing ships. I
guess that's just um sailing towards prosperity. I guess maybe
don't don't put a painting of a sinking ship. No,
that that's that is western function there. Yeah, sure that
(32:15):
you don't like that. That whole kind of psychology would
be detrimental to the health of the area. Yeah, why
would you want that anyway though? Like good painted sinking
ship Yeah, um, a depressed sea captain probably guess would
be my guess. Red is famine reputation. That's where you
want to put your various awards. Um so yeah, we
(32:39):
got a couple of those, and your jackalope head your
jackalope yeah, animal animal related things. You're right, we should
lay out our next studio like according to Functui dud,
we totally should you know? I just noticed is red
supposedly is what you want to put on the back
of your chair to block a badge. And we've got
a huge red foam thing in between us and Jerry.
(32:59):
Oh so we gotta get rid of that. Oh I
was gonna say, that explains why I've been able to
put up with her cheeks for so long. Now, Jerry,
she has the good flow our way, So we need
to open that up in our new place. Um, pink
love and relationships, that's where you want to put maybe
photos of your family or paired items. Again with the
(33:20):
family photos Yeah, I don't have that many family photos.
Paradig items that's cute, that makes sense, like bookends, salt
and pepper shakers. Uh, boxing gloves, Um, that's where you
hang your boxing gloves. Remember Joe Garden from The Onion
(33:41):
with those giant boxing gloves he had. Yeah, those were
so much fun. He had a thing where he just
wanted to get as many people to pose with those
as possible and take a swing at him. Uh. White
what we already mentioned was children or creativity. That's where
you might want to put some art or pictures of
your little brats. Um gray travel um or helpful people.
(34:02):
But you're souvenirs from Disneyland there, and not just Disneyland
any trip you've taken. Sure the Disney company wants you
to just put Disney souvenirs there though. Uh and yellow finally,
health um pottery and stone objects will help unlock your
chee there. Yeah. But speaking of Disney, Hong Kong, Disneyland,
they apparently had a functual expert consulted, and uh they
(34:24):
made some changes because of that consultation. Yeah, probably that
was probably a nice paying gig. The Yeah, you know
that consulting was like good che yeah, or they were
saying e jing. Anyway, the they opened on September twelve
because they were told that was a lucky day according
(34:44):
to the astrological chart. Their consultant drew up. Yep. They
changed the entrance by twelve degrees. Obviously it was a
traditional um functual practitioner uh, and added some boulders. Apparently
one of the restaurants has a projection of a fire,
which to me that wouldn't count, but maybe it does.
(35:06):
That's gonna that seems pretty Western to me because one
of the big bases of Western function is psychology. If
traditional function is based on magnetism and astrology, Western functuali
is based on psychology. And it is as simple as
you don't put a painting of a sinking ship in
(35:27):
the office of a business that's struggling to stay afloat
because the mind makes those kind of associations and it
messes up your cheek. That's right, um, And a lot
of this stuff as well, Like we said, um, I think,
like you just mentioned maybe like it just seems like
common sense. Um, Like a horseshoe shaped building that opens
(35:47):
up into a courtyard, it's gonna feel good, it's pleasing. Um.
Functually practitioners say that's energy. Or hey, don't don't build
a house on a dead end street, um, because it
blocks the CHI. I had a friend who lived at
a dead end street and it just felt like every
time I went over there, I felt closed in and
sort of weird. Did you end up killing his whole family?
(36:10):
He did not. He did move though. Um they were saved.
They were thanks to him moving. Um your office A
lot of a lot of times, he stays, people will
um their new offices. They will take this into account.
Some very famous people like Richard Branson and Donald Trump
have enlisted the help of functual experts to design their
(36:31):
offices because they want that chi and ergo money flowing. Yeah,
you don't have to be a Richard Branson or Donald
Trump to arrange your office, whether it's a cubicle or
what have you. UM, so that you can maximize the
flow of chief if you want to do a little
messing around. Supposedly, the one one one thing that you
want to ensure as much as possible is that you're
(36:53):
facing the entrance to your office. Yes, UM, that way
the chief flows correct towards you, not towards your back. Yeah,
you don't want the cheat you're back. No, remember the
Southern China um, the Southern China functui placement, the form school. Yeah. Um,
like you you put your the entrance of your house
(37:17):
is facing away from a hill, so the back of
your house backs up to a hill, so the chief
flows correctly. Same thing. You want the entrance to your
office to be flowing towards you, facing it if you
If you can't do that, then you just put up
a mirror so you can reflect the cheat towards you. Yeah,
that makes sense. Like you said, you want to put
something red on the back of your chair to block
(37:38):
the chief from your back. Yeah. Actually, now that I
think about it, this isn't so bad in here because
the chief, the red is to our side. It's coming
in that door and bouncing off of that right on us.
So Jerry is really the one is getting the short
end of the cheese stick. Here, a short short into
the cheese stick. Um, what else can you do? You
can put a fountain or a plant. Um, honestly, water
(37:59):
and would uh And they said even the picture of
a waterfall in your cubicle could help your chi. Your
workplace Chi. Again, there's a lot of disagreement about what
works and what doesn't with traditional FUNCTIONI it's like you
need to know where magnetic north is and you need
to orient your building according to that, and whatever you
(38:20):
do inside is almost irrelevant. Yeah, get rid of those
fluorescent lights though they all agree on that. Sure, I
know anything about cheet to know that fluorescent lights are
terrible for you? Agreed? Do you anything else? No, there's
it's a pretty good overview, I think, right. Sure, you
feel good about it. I feel better than I expected.
(38:41):
How's your ch It's fine? Yeah, all right, it's it's
not out of balance, it's not jumping for joy. It's
just it is today. Got you. Uh. If you want
to know more about chi or fung shui or any
stuff like that, you can type those words in the
search part how stuff works. And since I said that,
it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this
(39:05):
G E D success story. Hey, guys, got my G
E D way back in six so I could attend college.
Back then, the University of Illinois Chicago co Flames allowed
you and as a freshman, if you graduated high school
and had a pulse they called the student body. After
the first year, though you didn't perform, you're out. I
did reasonably well there and ultimately ended up at the
(39:27):
University of Cambridge in England, got my pH d in
archaeology there and worked in the field for a few years. UM.
I am now a stay at home dad of three boys,
five three and one living in uh Karl's Ruhe, Germany.
One of the things I love most about the American
education system is that a guy who dropped out of
high school at seventeen still had the opportunity to attend
(39:48):
college and ultimately end up with a PhD from one
of the greatest universities in the world. Thanks for another
great episode, guys. Has been listening since two thousand eight
and actually remember the before Chuck days. Uh and that
is from Chris, So way to go, Chris, Way to
go Chris. That is pretty awesome story. G d archaeologist,
(40:09):
stay at home dad five three and one. Sounds like
he's doing it right. Nice job, Chris. If you want
to let us know about your personal success story, we
love hearing about those. You can tweet to us at
s Y s K Podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff
Works dot com, and, as always, join us at our
home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com.
(40:34):
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