Vietnamese feng shui glossary: house and direction terms from toạ and hướng to bát trạch
Short answer: Vietnamese feng shui describes a house with a set of Sino-Vietnamese terms. Toạ is the sitting direction, the side the house leans its back against; hướng is the facing direction, where its front looks out. La kinh is the feng shui compass, known in English by its Mandarin name luo pan. Bát quái is the bagua, the eight trigrams mapped onto eight directions. Bát trạch, the Eight Mansions school, sorts people and houses into an East group and a West group. Minh đường, the bright hall, is the open space in front of a house, and thanh long and bạch hổ, green dragon and white tiger, are its left and right sides. This glossary explains each one with its usual English equivalent.
Most feng shui vocabulary in Vietnamese comes from Chinese through Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation, so Vietnamese readers recognise Chinese terms easily, while English sources often use several different translations for the same idea. The tables below give the most common English renderings, not the only ones.
Sitting and facing
| Vietnamese | Common English | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Toạ | Sitting direction | The back of the building, the side it "sits" on |
| Hướng | Facing direction | The front of the building, the side it looks out from |
| Toạ Bắc hướng Nam | Sitting north, facing south | Back to the north, front to the south |
| Cửa chính | Main door | The principal entrance, described as the "mouth" of the house |
Sitting and facing are always opposite. The confusion comes from how "facing" is decided. Some people use the direction of the main door, others the side of the building that faces the street or receives the most light and activity. In a Vietnamese nhà ống (tube house) the front wall, main door and street all coincide, so there is little debate. In an apartment there is far more disagreement: some take the direction of the flat's front door, others the direction of the balcony.
The compass and the eight trigrams
The la kinh is a specialised compass with a magnetic needle at the centre surrounded by concentric rings of characters marking directions, trigrams and calendar signs. The bát quái consists of the eight trigrams of the Book of Changes, each assigned to a direction in the arrangement called the Later Heaven sequence:
| Vietnamese | Direction | Common English or pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| Khảm | North | Kan |
| Cấn | North-east | Gen |
| Chấn | East | Zhen |
| Tốn | South-east | Xun |
| Ly | South | Li |
| Khôn | South-west | Kun |
| Đoài | West | Dui |
| Càn | North-west | Qian |
English books usually spell the trigrams in Mandarin pinyin, so knowing both forms makes it much easier to compare Vietnamese and English sources. The small octagonal mirror you see above many Vietnamese front doors is a gương bát quái, a bagua mirror.
Eight Mansions: the East and West groups
Bát trạch, the Eight Mansions school, is especially popular in Vietnam. It calculates each person's cung mệnh, usually called the kua number or life gua in English, from their birth year and sex, then places them in one of two groups:
- Đông tứ trạch, the East group: Khảm, Ly, Chấn, Tốn.
- Tây tứ trạch, the West group: Càn, Khôn, Cấn, Đoài.
Houses are grouped the same way by their sitting direction, and the idea is that people suit houses of their own group. Each person has four favourable directions, sinh khí, thiên y, diên niên and phục vị, and four unfavourable ones, tuyệt mệnh, ngũ quỷ, lục sát and hoạ hại. English translations vary widely: sinh khí appears as "life generating" or "prosperity", thiên y as "heavenly doctor" or "health", diên niên as "longevity" or "relationships", and phục vị as "stability" or "personal growth".
It is worth being clear that this is a belief system, that practitioners calculate it in different ways, and that there is no evidence a direction that "suits your birth year" improves anyone's life. It is still useful to understand when a Vietnamese landlord or relative mentions it.
The bright hall and the four celestial animals
| Vietnamese | Common English | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minh đường | Bright hall | Open space in front of the house: a yard, a wide pavement |
| Thanh long (tả) | Green dragon (left) | The left side, seen from inside looking out |
| Bạch hổ (hữu) | White tiger (right) | The right side, seen from inside looking out |
| Chu tước (tiền) | Red phoenix, vermilion bird (front) | The front |
| Huyền vũ (hậu) | Black tortoise (back) | The back, the support |
The most common mistake is reading left and right from the street. The convention is to stand inside the house looking out. A popular belief holds that the green dragon side should be higher or stronger than the white tiger side.
Energy words
- Sinh khí (sheng qi): lively, beneficial energy.
- Sát khí (sha qi): harmful energy, often linked with sharp corners or roads pointing straight at a house.
- Long mạch: the dragon vein, a line of favourable earth energy, mentioned mainly when choosing land for graves or houses.
- Âm, dương: yin and yang, complementary opposites such as dark and light, still and active.
Everyday housing words you will meet alongside them
Some words are not feng shui terms but appear constantly next to them: nhà ống (tube house), giếng trời (light well), sân thượng (rooftop terrace), phòng thờ (altar room) and chuồng cọp, "tiger cage", the steel cage fitted over windows and balconies. Writers in English about Vietnamese homes tend to keep the Vietnamese word and add a gloss, which is the approach this glossary follows.
To check your own home's direction, a compass with a clear degree scale is enough for a beginner. The Vietnamese-language shop Vật Phẩm Phong Thuỷ, which ships within Vietnam, has a section of feng shui compasses and measuring rulers; take readings away from steel doors and motorbikes, which pull the needle off true.