Your Kua Number, and What to Do When Spouses Are Opposite

The answer first: a couple in opposite groups does not need to move house, and neither partner needs to concede. Eight Mansions (八宅) governs which way a person faces, not whether a house is good. Two people can sleep in the same bed with the headboard oriented to the primary occupant's auspicious direction, while the other partner takes their own auspicious direction at a desk or work area. Real conflicts are far rarer than people assume, because most discussions blur "location" and "facing" into one thing.

First how to calculate it, then how to resolve it.

How to work out your Kua number

Everyone has a Kua number (卦數) from 1 to 9 — but never 5 — determined by year of birth and gender.

Steps:

1.Add the digits of the birth year together, repeating until one digit remains.

Example: 1985 → 1+9+8+5 = 23 → 2+3 = 5

2.Male: subtract that from 11. 11 − 5 = 6

3.Female: add it to 4. 4 + 5 = 9

4.If step 2 or 3 gives more than 9, add the digits again (10 → 1+0 = 1).

5.If the result is 5: males use 2, females use 8 (the Five Yellow has no trigram; it is lodged with Kun 坤 and Gen 艮).

So for someone born in 1985: male Kua 6, female Kua 9.

The step a great many people get wrong: Li Chun

The Kua year runs from Li Chun (立春, around 4 February), not from 1 January.

If you were born between 1 January and 3 February, calculate with the previous year. Someone born 20 January 1990 is calculated as 1989.

People born on 3–5 February have the hardest case — the exact moment of Li Chun drifts between 3 and 5 February each year, and the hour matters too. Year and month alone cannot separate these; you need a precise birth date and time.

This is why those online "type in your year, get your Kua" calculators are wrong for a meaningful share of people born in January and early February.

East group and West group

Kua numbers fall into two groups:

Group	Kua	Four auspicious directions
East group (東四命)	1, 3, 4, 9	N, E, SE, S
West group (西四命)	2, 6, 7, 8	SW, NW, W, NE

Everyone's four auspicious and four inauspicious directions follow from their Kua:

The four auspicious (四吉方)

Sheng Qi (生氣) — the strongest, governing career, vitality and drive. First choice for a desk or office orientation.

Tian Yi (天醫) — governing health and helpful people. A headboard facing here benefits sleep and constitution.

Yan Nian (延年) — governing relationships, social life and longevity. Often chosen for a couple's bedroom.

Fu Wei (伏位) — your own natal direction, governing stability and focus. Suits spaces where you need to settle.

The four inauspicious (四凶方)

Jue Ming (絕命) — the worst, governing major setbacks.

Wu Gui (五鬼) — governing accidents, disputes and financial loss.

Liu Sha (六煞) — governing conflict and romantic entanglement.

Huo Hai (禍害) — the mildest, governing minor illness and general friction.

The East group's four inauspicious directions are exactly the West group's four auspicious ones, and vice versa — so when a couple falls into opposite groups, their good directions are completely reversed.

Why "opposite" matters less than you think

This is the most important section of this article.

Eight Mansions is only one of two systems. A professional analysis uses Xuan Kong Flying Stars and Eight Mansions together, and the two govern different axes:

Flying Stars governs SPACE — which palace is auspicious, which is not, what each room is best used for, where objects go, which palace the bed and stove sit in. This is a property of the space, shared by the whole household.

Eight Mansions governs PERSONAL FACING — which way a particular person's head points when sleeping, which way they face when working, which way the stove mouth faces when cooking. This is a property of the person, and differs from person to person.

The key move is this: give "location" to Flying Stars, and "facing" to Eight Mansions.

The two can be separated. A person can perfectly well sleep in a palace that Flying Stars judges safe, while their headboard points to their own Eight Mansions auspicious direction. One bed, two separate decisions.

So when a couple is in opposite groups, the only thing genuinely in contention is which way the headboard points — not "which of us this house suits".

The actual order of operations for an opposite-group couple

1.Fix the bed's location first (Flying Stars). This step is not negotiable: the bed must not sit in a palace holding the Five Yellow (五黃), the Two Black (二黑), or a critical inauspicious combination. Avoiding major Flying Stars harm outranks any Eight Mansions benefit — better that neither partner gets their auspicious direction than that anyone sleeps in an afflicted palace.

2.Point the headboard to the primary occupant's auspicious direction (Eight Mansions). Where there is conflict, the priority order is: primary occupant > main earner > children > elderly.

3.The other partner recovers it in their own space. Desk orientation in the study, seating in a work area, the direction of the sofa they always sit in — take that partner's own Sheng Qi or Tian Yi here. In practice, people spend more waking hours at a desk than awake in bed, so this compensation is substantive rather than token.

4.Look for a compromise direction. If space allows, prefer a direction that is auspicious for A and at least not Jue Ming or Wu Gui for B. The four inauspicious directions are not equally severe — Huo Hai is the mildest, and retreating to it beats meeting Jue Ming head-on.

5.Use the places where both systems agree. If a direction is both a prosperous Flying Stars sector and someone's Eight Mansions auspicious direction, that is the most worthwhile position in the whole home — master bedroom, main living space and study can all be arranged toward it.

What you can do yourself

Work out the Kua number for everyone in the household (remembering that January and early-February birthdays roll back a year).

List each person's four auspicious directions and see whether your household skews East group or West group.

Measure which direction the headboard currently points, and which way the desk faces. Most people have never measured, and often discover someone has been sleeping oriented to their own Jue Ming for years.

Start with the cheapest adjustments: turning a desk, reversing the direction of a bed. These cost nothing.

Where this self-check runs out

Eight Mansions can only tell you whether a direction suits a person. It cannot tell you:

Whether the palace the bed currently sits in is auspicious or afflicted on your home's chart. If the Five Yellow sits there, no amount of good orientation helps — move it first, because avoiding harm outranks attracting benefit.

Whether there is an extra problem this year. The annual stars (流年飛星) are re-laid every year; a direction that was safe last year may receive the Five Yellow or Two Black this year, and the Tai Sui (太歲), Sui Po (歲破) and San Sha (三煞) directions are "better still than stirred" for the year. These are annual, and reset at the next Li Chun.

Which problems are structural and which are just this year's. These have to be kept apart, or you will renovate around a problem that disappears next February.

Eight Mansions is a very approachable system — and precisely because it is approachable, it dominates the content online and leaves people thinking that is all feng shui is. In reality it governs one axis; treat it as the whole and you end up with self-contradicting conclusions like "your auspicious direction has an inauspicious star, so should I use it or not?"

In one line

You can calculate the Kua number yourself — just remember the Li Chun cut-off. Opposite groups is not a problem, because Eight Mansions governs facing, not the house: give location to Flying Stars and facing to Eight Mansions, keep the two apart, and most of the conflict disappears.