Mệnh: Your physical traits, personality, abilities
Phụ Mẫu: Your biological, adoptive, or step-parents; their relationships to each other and to you; their life circumstances
Phúc Đức: "Thriving through virtue" or the extent to which you can reap blessings your forebears have sown
Điền Trạch: The means by which you acquire material things – through inheritance, hard work, or theft; the likelihood that they will last
Quan Lộc: Your vocation, career, and the power or fame that may come with it
Nô Bộc: Your network of friends, peers, and subordinates
Thiên Di: Not just travels, but your relationship with the universe
Giải Ách: Your predisposition to illnesses and recovery from them
Tài Bạch: Your attitude toward money and how you accumulate it – a marker of your real contribution to society
Tử Tức: Biological, adoptive, or step-children; the younger generation to whom you are a mentor
Phu Thê: Flings, dry-runs, life partnerships
Huynh Đệ: Biological, adoptive, and step-siblings; friends you hold closer than kin
(Photos by Emci)
Lá số tử vi is an astrological chart that consists of twelve cung (“houses”), populated with major and minor constellations.
The placement of the first house, cung Mệnh (“self”), is determined using the birth month and birth hour. The remaining eleven houses follow clockwise: Phụ Mẫu (“parents”); Phúc Đức (“karma”); Điền Trạch (“property”); Quan Lộc (“career”); Nô Bộc (“friends”); Thiên Di (“travel”); Giải Ách (“health”); Tài Bạch (“finance”); Tử Tức (“children”); Phu Thê (“spouse”); Huynh Đệ (“siblings”).
The rules for placing the constellations vary. Some depend on the birth year, month, day, or hour; some on the placement of other constellations.
An individual’s “lot in life” is suggested by a thirteenth house, Thân, which can overlay one of six houses: Self, karma, career, travel, finance, or spouse. The rule for its placement also uses the birth month and birth hour. A bootstrap puller-upper’s chart would presumably show Thân overlaying Mệnh.
The practice of comparing astrological charts to check a couple’s compatibility has been sensibly replaced by getting-to-know-you questions that cover the same gamut. At least one couple has reported bringing an armload of questionnaires to their first road trip for two, thereby making the most out of a make-or-break relationship test.
When food is shared, are you the one divvying it up or the one choosing? ▲ What transgressions do you consider unforgivable? ▲ Do you own a safe? ▲ You have a coughing fit; do you immediately think allergy… cold… pneumonia? ▲ Is a group of six an intimate get-together or a crowd? ▲ What do you and your siblings fight about? ▲ You can pick only one out of three: Would you do something you love, something you’re good at, or something that pays well? ▲ Rent or buy?