The Taoist Xiang Arts are those which study form or external appearance. That can be a number of things and the best known are:
- Feng Shui – the study of land and houses to watch the cause and effect of energies in the environment. It actually has two side, Yang Chai and Yin Chai. Yang Chai is the most used since it’s the side that looks at houses and businesses. Yin Chai is very powerful too, but since it’s concerned with graves, it’s spoken about less frequently. Yang house Feng Shui concerns how your immediate surrounds, such as your home or workplace, affect you whereas Yin house looks at how your ancestor’s grave affects you (or perhaps how your final resting place will affect your children)
- Mian Xiang – this is the art of face reading and mole reading. The Chinese system is quite special in that rather than drawing stereotyped caricatures like “people with big noses are witches”, it looks at our fortunes at various stages of our life, for example our childhood is reflected in the shape of our ears.
- Name Analysis – the study of how names relate to us is complex and particularly so for Chinese names. These can be written in different ways and the exact arrangement of caligraphy strokes can affect how the thought-form of our name affects us.