I. M. Pei’s BaZi chart 贝聿铭

The three pillars the date fixes

Each pillar is two characters: a stem on top (an element, yin or yang) and a branch below (one of the twelve zodiac animals). The day stem is the day master — the person. The label above each other stem is its ten god (Shi Shen, 十神): what that element is to the day master.

Each animal also hides stems of its own, strongest first: the Snake hides Yang Fire (丙, Indirect Resource), Yang Metal (庚, Eating God), Yang Earth (戊, Friend); the Dragon hides Yang Earth (戊, Friend), Yin Wood (乙, Direct Officer), Yin Water (癸, Direct Wealth); the Dog hides Yang Earth (戊, Friend), Yin Metal (辛, Hurting Officer), Yin Fire (丁, Direct Resource).

Direct Resource (Zheng Yin, 正印)

What produces you, opposite polarity. Straightforward support: what teaches, shelters and backs you.

Indirect Resource (Pian Yin, 偏印)

What produces you, same polarity. Support of an indirect kind — the tradition treats it as nourishment that can also crowd out the Eating God (食神).

Eating God (Shi Shen, 食神)

What you produce, same polarity. Output that comes easily: making, feeding, expressing, without strain.

Friend (Bi Jian, 比肩)

Same element, same polarity as you. A peer: someone standing where you stand, competing for the same thing and equally able to share the load.

Seven Killings (Qi Sha, 七杀)

What controls you, same polarity. Pressure with nothing softening it: demand, risk, and whatever you answer to whether you chose it or not.

Direct Officer (Zheng Guan, 正官)

What controls you, opposite polarity. Authority in its orderly form: office, rule, the structure you fit into.

Direct Wealth (Zheng Cai, 正财)

What you control, opposite polarity. Wealth held steadily — earned, kept, accounted for.

Hurting Officer (Shang Guan, 伤官)

What you produce, opposite polarity. Output with an edge on it. The name means it injures the Direct Officer (正官), which is why the tradition reads it as talent that does not sit well with authority.

Day master

Born in a Dragon month (Chen, 辰), when Earth rules the season. In that season Yang Earth is thriving (Wang, 旺): the season is its own. (One of five seasonal states, Wang Xiang Xiu Qiu Si, 旺相休囚死, after the San Ming Tong Hui, 三命通會, book 2.)

Elements in the six known characters

None of the six is Metal, Water. The hour pillar’s two characters may supply it or may not — that depends on the hour. Hidden stems are not counted here.

All twelve hours, cast one by one

In all twelve hours the Yang Earth day master reads strong. Whatever the hour, the support-and-restrain method favours Metal, Water, Wood — the date alone settles it.

Each row is exactly what the full calculator would say for a birth in that hour. Strength comes from three tests: in season (De Ling, 得令) — born in the season of the day master’s own element; rooted (De Di, 得地) — the same element hidden in a branch; backed (De Shi, 得势) — as much support around it as drain. Two of three reads strong. The favoured elements come from support and restrain (Fu Yi, 扶抑): a strong day master wants draining, a weak one wants support. There are three other methods for the useful element — climate (Tiao Hou, 调候), bridging (Tong Guan, 通關) and disease and cure (Bing Yao, 病藥) — each from its own text; see the useful god page. Hours are solar time at the birthplace, so a clock time needs correcting first; and a birth after 23:00 falls in the late Rat hour, where the two schools disagree about whether the day has turned.

I. M. Pei’s bone weight (Cheng Gu, 称骨)

Lunar date: day 6 of the 3rd month, Fire Snake year (丁巳年三月初六). Its weights: year 0.6 liang, month 1.8 liang, day 1.5 liang — 3.9 liang before the hour. Over the twelve hours that makes 4.5 liang to 5.5 liang.

Bone weighing is a folk almanac sum over the calendar positions of the year, month, day and hour — not the elements, and not the chart above. How heavy is heavy? The tables and the spread ›