A single birth time produces a BaZi chart and a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart, and the two are often mistaken for two contradictory answers. This article sets out what each system cuts, three places where they most often corroborate each other, and three misreadings to avoid.
Every autumn, more people come asking whether their Metal is too heavy. Being born in autumn corresponds to “Metal” in Ba Zi, and the character is neither praise nor warning: it describes a constitution and a rhythm. What your own pillar actually says takes a chart to find out.
23 September 2026 is the autumn equinox. It is called “fen”, the dividing point, because day and night are almost equal on that day, and because it marks autumn halfway through. The character was explained in a Han-dynasty book, and what the ancients did on this day later turned into Mid-Autumn.
Mid-Autumn is eight days away. When it comes to worshipping the moon — what to set out, what time to start, who may not take part — the old rules are quite clear: besides mooncakes there should be one large “reunion cake”, pomelo belongs on the offering table, and the line “men don’t worship the moon” has a definite source.
Reports say this winter’s polar vortex may be disturbed. In China, the old sayings around the autumn equinox are being brought out again. The two sets of claims rest on completely different evidence — and each covers a much narrower range than it sounds.
Turkey’s supplementary placement round for university applications opened on 16 September. In Turkish the word for fate is strikingly concrete: alın yazısı, literally “the writing on the forehead”. It is their view of fate, and also the way they meet a result.
The region has already announced another NT$10,000 universal cash payout for 2027, and the money has not been paid yet. Folk practice has long had a way of handling it: money “borrowed” from a temple by tossing divination blocks is fortune money, and the note kept in a wallet is the “money mother”. Its purpose is not to grow, but to remind.
What keeps people alive in a zombie film? The answer is often written on the door frame. As Resident Evil: Noche Cero (working title) reaches Latin American cinemas from September, it is a good moment to look again at the front door — from garlic and salt in the West to peach charms, door gods and mugwort in China.
From 20 to 26 September comes Japan's autumn "Ohigan", and the middle day, 23 September, is a public holiday, the Autumnal Equinox Day. Together they make a five-day break, and Japanese families' plans are strikingly uniform: visiting the graves, changing the offering flowers, setting out rice dumplings.
In the three minutes before concert tickets go on sale, many people run through a fixed routine: wash their hands, switch devices, close other windows, set a lucky charm beside them. Do these actions work? They do — but not on the tickets.
Gold in Türkiye is up about sixty per cent in a year, and local buying habits have not stopped: a "gold day" where neighbours take turns hosting, and a small coin pinned to the chest at weddings. In Türkiye, gold is first of all not an investment, but a container for blessings.
On the eve of Independence Day the president of Mexico rings a bell and shouts from a balcony, and the gesture is replayed every year. On the same night many children have a "deer's eye" seed tied to their wrist. One shout is for the whole country; the other is kept for oneself.
