Kua Number: Find Yours and Read Your Eight Directions

One number drawn from your birth year sorts the whole compass, in the Eight Mansions tradition, into directions that suit you and directions that do not. That number is your Kua. From it a practitioner reads four favourable directions, each with its own job, and four unfavourable directions ranked from awkward to the one most teachers tell you not to face for long. Two people in the same room can hold opposite sets, and the tradition has a standard way of handling that as well.

The Kua belongs to the Compass School, the branch that works with direction and birth data. Form School reads what you can see, the shape of a room and the road outside. Eight Mansions asks which compass point suits which person, and the answer means nothing without a decent reading. If you have never taken one, how to take a feng shui compass reading covers the measurement before you move a desk around a bearing taken beside a radiator.

The published method is stable enough to check line by line: reduce the birth year, apply the adjustment, handle the case of 5, then read your row of the table. What follows takes that order, with worked examples, the full table, and the room choices where the system touches furniture.

What the Kua number is

The Kua runs from 1 to 9, with the gap at 5 covered in the calculation section. Every number sits in one of two groups. Kua 1, 3, 4, and 9 form the East Group. Kua 2, 6, 7, and 8 form the West Group. East Group people draw their four favourable directions from north, south, east, and southeast. West Group people draw theirs from west, northwest, southwest, and northeast. Each group favourable set is the other group unfavourable set in full. Nothing in the system gives one group better directions. It gives each person half the compass, then ranks the four points inside that half by purpose.

The number comes from the birth year alone. Month and day matter only through the year-turn rule for January and early February births. Two people born in the same year under the same formula share a Kua. The Kua is a broad sort, not a portrait: nine numbers, eight direction sets, one compass.

Eight Mansions, Ba Zhai in Chinese, applies the same sets to houses. A building takes its group from its sitting direction. Person and house of the same group form the traditional match, which the house section below covers. The person comes first here because that half is the one you can act on without moving.

How to work out your Kua number

Three moves produce the number. Reduce the birth year to one digit. Apply the adjustment for men or women, which changed at the year 2000. Substitute if the result is 5.

Reduce the birth year

Add the last two digits of the lunar birth year. If the sum has two digits, add those digits until one digit remains. A year of 1984 gives 8 plus 4 is 12, then 1 plus 2 is 3. A year of 1990 gives 9 plus 0 is 9. A year of 2005 gives 0 plus 5 is 5. That single digit feeds the next step. It is not yet the Kua.

Use the previous year for births in January or early February. The Chinese year turns in late January or early February, and many teachers set the turn at Li Chun, around February 4. A birth on January 20, 1990 counts in the 1989 cycle. A birth on February 10, 1990 counts in 1990. Skipping this rule is the most common reason two calculators disagree about the same person.

Apply the adjustment

For men born before 2000, subtract the reduced digit from 10. For men born from 2000 onward, subtract it from 9. For women born before 2000, add 5 and reduce again if the sum has two digits. For women born from 2000 onward, add 6, with the same reduction if needed.

• Man, before 2000: Kua = 10 minus the reduced digit
• Man, 2000 or later: Kua = 9 minus the reduced digit
• Woman, before 2000: Kua = reduced digit plus 5, reduced if needed
• Woman, 2000 or later: Kua = reduced digit plus 6, reduced if needed

Using the wrong side of 2000 puts the result one off from every standard table, so check the birth year against that line before you add or subtract.

The case of 5

A result of 5 has no direction set of its own. Men use the Kua 2 directions. Women use the Kua 8 directions. Both rows sit in the West Group, so a 5 always lands in the West Group on a borrowed row. A calculator that reports Kua 5 and stops has left the last step undone.

Worked examples

Four birth years show each move, including the double reduction and the January effect.

The 1984 pair shares a group without sharing a number, which is common for partners born in the same year. The 2005 case shows the reduction after the adjustment: 5 plus 6 is 11, which reduces to 2. A January date changes any of these. A man born in January 1984 runs 1983 instead: 8 plus 3 is 11, reduced to 2, then 10 minus 2 gives Kua 8. Work your own year digit by digit. Most errors sit in the first addition.

The full direction table

Each Kua carries eight named directions. The favourable four are Sheng Chi, Tian Yi, Yan Nian, and Fu Wei. The unfavourable four, from least bad to worst in common listings, are Huo Hai, Wu Gui, Liu Sha, and Jue Ming. Read across your row. The first four columns rank your favourable directions. The last four rank the rest, ending at Jue Ming.

Your four favourable directions should all sit in your group half of the compass. A Kua 1 row shows southeast, east, south, and north, and nothing west of that line. The unfavourable four should be the opposite group set in full. The duplicate row for Kua 5 female and Kua 8 is correct; the substitution makes them the same set. Each direction covers a 45-degree sector centred on its point, so small errors mid-sector change nothing. Near a boundary, take repeat readings away from metal.

What each direction is used for

The favourable four split by job. Practitioners reach for different ones in different rooms. The unfavourable four split by severity, and only the last draws strong language in the traditional texts.

Sheng Chi, Tian Yi, Yan Nian, Fu Wei

Sheng Chi is usually given as prosperity or success. In feng shui tradition it is the direction linked with work and outward activity. Practitioners face a desk toward it where the room allows, and treat it as the first choice for a work position, a studio table, or a counter.

Tian Yi, the heavenly doctor, is the direction tradition links with rest and recovery. Its standard job is the bed: the head of the bed points toward Tian Yi so the sleeper head lies that way through the night. Teachers also seat an unwell family member facing it. The link is traditional. It describes how practitioners arrange a room, and it sits behind light, quiet, air, and the mattress as things that decide how a bedroom feels.

Yan Nian covers relationships and longevity in the traditional naming. Practitioners use it for shared seating, dining table orientation, and rooms where people spend time together. Because it asks only that seated people face it, it is easier to share than a bed direction, and teachers name it when two Tian Yi directions point at different walls.

Fu Wei covers personal growth and stability, the quietest of the four. Tradition links it with study and calm. Practitioners use it for a reading chair, a child desk, a meditation spot, and any seat where settling matters more than producing. It is the direction teachers reach for when the stronger facings collide with the furniture a room can hold.

Huo Hai, Wu Gui, Liu Sha, Jue Ming

Huo Hai, mishaps, is the mildest of the unfavourable four. Tradition reads it as small setbacks and friction. Nobody rearranges a home over Huo Hai. Practitioners note it and pick another facing for the one chair someone occupies all day if the swap costs nothing.

Wu Gui, five ghosts, ranks next. The traditional reading links it with quarrels, restlessness, and money slipping away in small amounts. In room terms, teachers avoid it as the facing for a desk where someone does accounts or long concentrated work.

Liu Sha, six killings, ranks third. The classical lists tie it to conflict and to legal or relationship trouble. Practitioners treat it as a poor facing for a main entrance orientation or a long-stay seat where a better option is free.

Jue Ming, total loss, is the worst of the eight in common listings, and tradition reserves its strongest caution for it. Teachers say to avoid spending long hours facing it, to avoid sleeping with the head toward it where a choice exists, and in the house application to avoid placing the front door, stove, or toilet in the Jue Ming sector. In daily use it works as a tiebreaker. Between two otherwise equal desk positions, the one that does not face Jue Ming wins.

East Group, West Group, and houses

The group split predicts where friction shows up in a shared home. Two West Group partners share all four favourable directions and differ only on rank. An East Group and a West Group partner share none, so every favourable facing for one is unfavourable for the other. That pairing is common, and tradition treats it as a furnishing problem with standard compromises rather than a mismatch between people.

Eight Mansions runs the same sets over the building. A house takes its group from its sitting direction, the way the back of the house faces, opposite the facing direction. A West Group house has its favourable sectors in the west half of its plan. A person and house of the same group form the traditional match, since the sectors that suit the building suit the occupant on the same ranking. Teachers read the house group off the sitting direction, then compare it with each occupant Kua to suggest who uses which room.

Hold that comparison lightly. An East Group house with sound form and good light serves a West Group occupant better than a matched house with a broken layout. Note the house group when you take your reading. If it matches yours, sector advice and personal advice align. If not, apply your directions to movable things and let fixed things follow the practical rules of their rooms. The sector reading of a plan sits in the Bagua map room-by-room guide, and the furnishing layer in the five elements balancing guide.

Room by room

Direction advice competes with door swings, windows, and the shape of the room. Practitioners apply the Kua after the placement rules that govern any room. Position the furniture so the room works, then choose among the workable positions the one that picks up the favourable facing. A desk facing Sheng Chi with its back to the door and glare on the screen loses to a Fu Wei desk in a settled spot. The command position whole-home guide sets those placement rules out room by room, and they come first.

Desk and study

Face the desk toward Sheng Chi if the room also gives the chair a wall behind it and a view of the door. If Sheng Chi puts your back to the door or the screen to the window, take Fu Wei next. Tradition links Fu Wei with study, and teachers accept it as the standard second choice for a desk, including desks for children. Skip a full working day facing Jue Ming where another wall is available. In a shared office, the partner with the longer hours at home takes the Sheng Chi facing and the other takes Fu Wei or Yan Nian.

Bed and bedroom

Point the head of the bed toward Tian Yi. Head direction means the way the top of the head points lying down, toward the headboard wall. Teachers rank the Tian Yi bed as the main bedroom use of the system, ahead of desk facing, since sleep fills more hours than any desk. If Tian Yi puts the bed in the door path or under a beam, work down your favourable list, Yan Nian then Fu Wei, before accepting an unfavourable head direction. Shared rooms, where two Tian Yi directions often disagree, are handled in the couples section below and worked with furniture positions in the bedroom layout guide for couples. A Tian Yi bed on a noisy wall still loses to a Fu Wei bed on the quiet one.

Door, living room, kitchen, bathroom

Where a real choice exists, a new build or two doors in use, tradition favours a front door opening into a favourable sector for the occupants. Most readers inherit a door they cannot move. Note its direction and turn to the movable items. Living rooms run on Yan Nian logic: angle the main seating so the people who use it most face a favourable direction for the length of a conversation, then let light and the shape of the room settle the rest.

Tradition says to keep the stove, front door, and toilet out of the Jue Ming sector of the home. Take that as teachers apply it, a ranking to use when a stove position or a new bathroom is genuinely open between two workable spots. It does not ask anyone to replumb a kitchen. The work triangle, ventilation, and clearances decide a kitchen, and a stove that cooks safely in a Jue Ming sector serves the house better than one placed by direction against the workflow. Bathrooms follow the pipes. Direction chooses only where the plans already give a choice.

Two Kuas in one home

Protect the long, shared positions first and let the short ones split. Sleep comes before seating. Teachers usually set the bed head from the favourable list of the partner who sleeps less well, or pick a direction one partner ranks as Tian Yi and the other ranks as Yan Nian or Fu Wei. Read both rows together and look for the least-bad overlap. A direction favourable for one and only Huo Hai for the other beats a direction the second partner ranks as Jue Ming. With eight points and only one worst rank each, that overlap nearly always exists.

Desks need no compromise, since each person faces their own Sheng Chi or Fu Wei from their own desk. Shared seating bends by angle. Chairs at right angles put each sitter nearer a favourable facing than two chairs side by side against one wall, and a round or square dining table does the same. Where a straight conflict remains, teachers use Fu Wei as the compromise direction. Its association is the calmest of the four, it asks little of a room, and it gives the partner whose Sheng Chi points elsewhere a favourable seat instead of an unfavourable one. Tradition scores directions here, not the relationship. The compromises are how practitioners furnish a shared home with two direction sets.

Where the method stops

The Kua system is a traditional framework from the Eight Mansions school. Its rules sit in a stable published form, and the tables here follow the standard listings. The method takes a birth year as its only input. Treat the output as design tradition, a long-used way of deciding which way a desk or a bed faces, and not as evidence about a person.

The directions are only as good as the reading behind them. A bearing taken indoors beside appliances can land a sector out, and magnetic declination shifts by degrees that vary with place, enough to matter near a sector edge. Take the reading away from steel where you can, repeat it, and note the house sitting direction at the same time if you use the house group. Lineages differ on the year turn, lunar new year against Li Chun, and a teacher in a specific lineage may place a winter birthday one Kua apart. No convention changes what the system is: a traditional ranking for furnishing decisions, alongside the light, noise, layout, and budget that decide whether a room works.