Kua number
The Kua number is your personal number in Eight Mansions Feng Shui, worked out from your birth year and gender. It places you in the East or West group and gives you four favourable and four unfavourable directions.
Also known as: gua number, ming gua
Also called the Ming Gua, or life trigram, the Kua number links you with one of the eight trigrams of the bagua and with its home direction. It is used to choose which way to face at a desk, which way to point the head of a bed and which rooms suit you best.
Use the Chinese solar year, which begins at the moment of Li Chun, when the Sun reaches 315°, on 3, 4 or 5 February. Add the last two digits of the year and reduce to one digit. Men subtract it from 10 (from 9 if born in 2000 or later); women add 5 (add 6 from 2000) and reduce again. A man’s 0 becomes 9. A result of 5 becomes 2 for men and 8 for women, so there is no Kua 5.
For a man born on 14 August 1990: 9 + 0 = 9, and 10 − 9 = 1, so Kua 1, East group. For a woman born the same day: 9 + 5 = 14, then 5, which becomes 8, West group. Someone born on 20 January 1990 counts as 1989, giving Kua 2 for a man and 4 for a woman.
The commonest mistake is using the calendar year for January and early February births. For a birth on the Li Chun date itself, the time decides, because the year turns at a precise moment; our Kua finder asks for the birth time in that case. Li Chun is also not the same as Chinese New Year, which moves between 21 January and 20 February; the Kua follows the solar date.