10 replies to this topic

[designerboy01]

Does anyone still practice this art of face reading besides fortune tellers? Mao had one thaat went with him when he met with people. I met a person who can do this and was quite impressed.

[Minty]

http://images.google...ttp...6lr=&sa=G

I found this website about it...

[l0ckx]

Does anyone still practice this art of face reading besides fortune tellers? Mao had one thaat went with him when he met with people. I met a person who can do this and was quite impressed.

i am surprised to hear about Mao having a face reader with him...he publicly supported things like traditional medicine, but privately didn't believe any of it. This is one of those things i can't see him believing nor having as an aid...

[designerboy01]

I also heard that this concept of face reading does not work well on non-asians. I really got balled over when I met this old chinese woman on the bus who did this. She said some stuff to me that really got to me. She also said if she has a non-profit organization she wanted me to run it.

[General_Zhaoyun]

The art/knowledge of face-reading is known in english as "facelogy". In chinese, it is known as "Mian Xiang Xue 面相学" or simply "Xiang Xue 相学". It is a knowledge field which studies a person's facial characteristics in order to predict his/her fortune, personal character, thinking etc. Facelogy is not known only to the chinese, it is also prevalent in western civilization (esp. in Christianity/Greek philosophy).

In ancient China, "facelogy" was greatly studied by the emperors and military generals as it formed part of the "Emperor's way" as well as the "chinese art of war". Emperor used facelogy in order to predict and study the psychology character of his officials or his political opponents. In military, other than collection of military intelligence, facelogy was used to study and understand the enemy's thinking and action. Thus, facelogy formed a basic knowledge pre-requisite for the rulers/leaders in their daily governance activities.

Facelogy in China had thousand years of history. During the ancient times, various scholars had pursued a quest to understand this knowledge, compiled and established a theoretic system for chinese facelogy, and from there accumulated much experience. It was generally related to the cultural content of chinese divination, in particular I-Ching (Book of Change). Its content include "Medicine 医”、“Divinition 卜”、“Astrology 星” and “Facelogy 相” . In chinese medicine, “Observation 望”、“Hearing 闻”、“Questioning 问”、“Diagnosis 切” had all become part of chinese medicine. And as for facelogy, it was closely related to fortune telling.

In chinese facelogy, "face 相" is a symbolic representation of a 'life'. This "life" was composed of an external symbol (the outer appearance of a face), internal symbol (the "Qi" or "breath" or "internal essence" of a person), any human activities and his/her "interaction symbol" (his behaviour/emotion).

According to historical legend, the founder of Han dynasty Liu Bang was said to have a face that looks like a dragon. His nose was full of flesh and his beard was beautiful. The famous han general Wei Qing was born with a humble background (he was born into a family of a small official and a court maid), but a facelogist said he would be "elevated to the status of a feudal lord". Deng Tong, one of Emperor Han Wendi's favourite official, was of a high position, but facelogist said "he would die of starvation". Later, Deng Tong was accused of illegal minting of bronze coins and forced into exile, poverty and died of starvation...

The above are just some 'legendary stories' based on chinese facelogy.

[General_Zhaoyun]

I've obtained some information about chinese face reading based on the link at
http://tw.knowledge....d=1306041415249

Perhaps, you will hear that one can tell whether a person is rich or not by looking at the size of the nose. However, we've probably seen some people with long and big nose, but aren't really that rich. Thus, people began to wonder how we can predict a person's wealth accurately from a person's nose.

According to the Book "Sheng Xiang Quan Ji 《神相全篇》" (Godly Face Annotation), the "5 rules 五法" stated that "determination of a person's wealth status can be seen in the nose". From this theory, the nose belongs to the "saturn 土星" (star having the elements of "earth 土"). In the 5 elements theory, the earth will give birth to metal "Jin 金" (which also refers to "gold" or simply 'money'). Thus from this, if one has a rather wide and fleshy nose, one will definitely be rich.

In addition, in this book, the "10 Observations 十觀" mentioned about "5 moutain peaks and 3 stops 五嶽及三停". It stated that "五嶽俱朝，貴壓朝班，亦且錢財自旺" (5 moutain peaks are full of reverence for the dynasty, it is full of wealth) and "三停平等，一生衣祿無虧" (3 stops represent equality, one will not fear not having wealth and good life).

This means that in chinese facelogy, there are 5 'moutain peaks' in the face:

1. Forehead (Southern Peak "Heng Shan" 南嶽衡山)
2. Lower Chin (Northern Peak "Heng Shan" 北嶽恆山)
3. Nose (Center Peak "Song Shan" 中嶽嵩山)
4. Left Cheek (Eastern Peak "Tai Shan" 東嶽泰山)
5. Right Cheek (Western Peak "Hua Shan" 西嶽華山)

The taller these 5 'mountain peaks' are, the fortune of this person will become better. And the nose is the tallest amongst these 5 'mountain peask'. Thus it is the most symbolic representation for wealth.

And as for the "3 stops", it refers to the 3 divisions of the face across the 'length of the face'. They are as follow:

1. Upper Stop (上停) - this refers to the region between the brink of the hair till the two eye brows. This controls our destiny from the time we are born till the age of 25.

2. Central Stop (中停) - this refers the region from the peak of two eyes till the highest point of the nose. This controls our destiny from age 26-50.

3. Lower Stop (下停) - this refers to the region from central point of face till the lower chin. This controls our destiny from age 51 till end of a life.

The nose is positioned within the central location of the 3 stops and the time when we establish our career and start making money was generally from the age of 26 till 50 years old. Thus, it had a great importance in facelogy.

Then, is the longer the nose, the better? Not necessarily so, in actual fact, the length of a nose should not be longer or shorter than 1/3 of the face. Otherwise, it would not be counted as a 'perfect face'. In chinese facelogy, it also studied a person's fortune/destiny according to 12 organs of the face. This not only includes the nose, but also include others such as "heaven house', "Land house", "Jia Gui", "Well" etc.

In real life, using 'face' to predict a person's wealth is not too objective. One also has to look at the 'facial color', 'essence', 'bone', ' form of face', ' past fortune etc...to predict a person's fortune.

[Moon]

I understand that apart from the chinese facelogy's 5 'moutain peaks' in the face, moles on the face (or any part of the body) can also predict a person's wealth or life destiny (fortunes or misfortunes)..

Edited by Moon, 31 August 2006 - 01:05 AM.

[yongzheng freak]

I read that Yongzheng emperor does 'face reading' too whenever he meets wtih his new officials and will jot down remarks on what he observes.

[Freddy1]

The art/knowledge of face-reading is known in english as "facelogy". In chinese, it is known as "Mian Xiang Xue 面相学" or simply "Xiang Xue 相学". .........

(I know this is an old post)

It is also known as Phrenology.
Theres related arts known as:
Physiognomy
Pathognomy
Characterology
Personology
Psychognomy

Phrenology/facelogy became disfavour in the West in large part due to NAZI ideology about racial superiority and intellegence. The art is nearly extinct in the West. There are still some books around but most are old books about the subject. A few new books but they usually dont sell well; so publishers are relucntant to print those types of books.

[Freddy1]

I also heard that this concept of face reading does not work well on non-asians. ....

(I know this is an old post.)

Keep in mind face reading needs to be modify slightly due to racial differeances. Some authors on Chinese face reading in the West has done this. Even in the west the books on modern face reading have been slightly modify to adjust to racial differences. (keep in mind theres not alot of face readers in the west anymore.)