How Do You Read Feng Shui for an Only Child?

Translator's note. A very short piece, written for readers raised under the one-child policy, and it turns on a simple point that is easy to miss: with siblings, the feng shui of a house is divided among them according to birth order; with an only child, there is no division, so the whole configuration — good and bad — belongs to one person. The accounting image (add up what you owe, add up what is owed to you) is how the comparison is meant to be made.

An only child owns all three hundred and sixty degrees of the feng shui. So the first thing to see is whether his own position falls on auspicious sand and water or on inauspicious.

If his position is auspicious, then however inauspicious the surrounding sand and water may be, they only pull him down by a degree. But if his position itself is inauspicious, and the surrounding sand and water are inauspicious too, then he is finished.

Second, add up the energy of all the auspicious sand and water, and add up the energy of all the inauspicious sand and water, and compare the two. Whichever is greater tells you whether this only child's fortune is good or bad.

It is like adding up everything you owe and everything owed to you, and seeing whether your balance is positive or negative.

Nobody shares an only child's feng shui, good or bad; it is all his. Have you not noticed? When parents are paralysed, and there are several siblings, one contributes money and another contributes labour. An only child must contribute both. But turn it around: if the parents have property, nobody will contest the inheritance with an only child; where there are several siblings, the estate must be divided.

The reasoning in feng shui is the same. Several siblings divide the auspicious and inauspicious energy among them. An only child gets all of it.