Folklore Friday: PiXiu

Hey guys, welcome to Learn Feng Shui, where you'll learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view, taking out the myths and superstition. If you like weekly tips as well as fun folklore tales, you'll enjoy learning Feng Shui with me. Hey guys, today I'm bringing you the legend of Paiyuu. Hey guys, go check out the events page on our website following the link below. All the workshops which are totally free and really going to be geared towards more beginning Feng Shui.

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So you'll be able to go back if you can't join live. So anyway, I love you. Go check it out. Alright guys, so the legend of Paiyuu, out of all of the folklore symbols and all kinds of stuff, he's actually one that I own and keep on my desk. Not for the symbolism, but really just because I think he's so cute.

Maybe my husband in 2018 went to Singapore for the Joey Yap Feng Shui Academy. And when we were there, of course, we went shopping. And of course, they have all sorts of little, you know, items, tokens, Feng Shui geared things. But when we were at a Jade, like shop, I guess in the middle of an alley somewhere, I came across a little Jade Paiyuu. And I just thought he was so cute.

So now he lives on my desk with me. With that being said, let's kind of jump into it and I'll describe what he looks like and why he's my favorite. So Paiyuu or sometimes called Piu is one of the five auspicious animals of traditional Chinese culture. The other four are the dragon, the phoenix, the turtle, and the kaiolin. Remember, the kaiolin is the Chinese unicorn.

The Chinese people call it a fortune beast. And it's a line looking beast that has the head of a dragon, the body of a horse, and the legs of the kaiolin. And it's able to fly. Although usually in depictions, the wings are kind of carved into it. They're never like open.

So don't know why. The Paiyuu is both ferocious and powerful. So it's able to work as a security guard of heaven, resisting demons and ghosts. Just like the dragon and the kaiolin, the Paiyuu is such a bring happiness and good luck for people and has that exercising function. So I was able to of course to drive out those ghosts and demons.

What is different from the kaiolin is that the Paiyuu is a ferocious animal and has a strong will and is protecting its master. That is the very reason many Chinese people wear jaiyuu's. And it's very true. And even not just Chinese, but they're very big in Asian culture. I know I went to a nail shop and the gentleman that was giving me my pedicure, his Vietnamese, but I asked him where he got his bracelet.

Because he had the most beautiful white jade bracelet with a golden pie U in it. And I just thought, wow, I want that. Like I was jealous. And so if you Google like Paiyuu bracelet, it's spelled P-I-X-I-U. If you Google like jade bracelet, that you will definitely see him and you'll be like, oh gosh, I know what that looks like.

A lot of times he's mistaken for a food dog or maybe like a dragon because he kind of resembles that. The difference is he'll have a little horn on his head. So the Paiyuu has 26 figures and 49 incarnations. And as Chinese mythology says, the Paiyuu is a dragon king's ninth son. So gold, silver, and jewels, and all other treasures were Paiyuu's staple food.

And that gives Paiyuu a noble temperament which helped him win the love of the jade emperor and the dragon king. So one day, maybe because he had eaten too much, he actually released his bowels on the courts of the jade emperor's palace. And the angry emperor beat him in a remove. He actually removed his anus. And so when the news spread among the Chinese people, they regarded it Paiyuu as an auspicious animal that helped them in making fortunes.

And I've also heard it helped them. They say it helps them keep a fortune because of that quality of holding in the gold after he's eaten it. You know, it stays in his body like a big piggy bank, I guess. It says here that fungchui experts say that Paiyuu can protect homes, exercise devils, raise fortune, and power for their masters. So there's a saying goes that says, touch a Paiyuu once and you will get luck twice and you will get money and treasure.

And on the third time you will get a power position. So I think I'm about to touch my three times guys. Usually there are three materials that the Paiyuu is made out of copper, wood, and jade. Copper is relatively cheap and it mimics gold. Wood was traditionally used in sculpting Paiyuu figures on the jost of big houses to keep out the bad luck.

So I guess like the food dogs, they would actually carve these wooden figures onto the jost of the home. And it says a recent years, various kinds of jade have been used in Paiyuu sculpting. But no matter what Paiyuu is made from, it's almost the same power in raising fortunes it says. But traditionally according to fungchui experts, according to this website, the copper Paiyuu's placed in eight directions have the strongest powers. So one peculiarity of the Paiyuu, if the master is violated the law, it will not work on him anymore.

So I guess there's some things you can't do. Let's look at that. Before I move on to the faux pas of placing a Paiyuu or a fitting Paiyuu, I want to address something I just said. So it says here that you know that fungchui experts usually say that a copper Paiyuu placed in the eight directions have a strong power. This is because one of the thoughts within fungchui and placing symbols, especially these traditional symbols out, is that the Paiyuu is said to appease the grand duke or the Tai soy of the year.

Remember the Tai soy or grand duke is just the area in your home that governs the animal sign of the year. So this year it's an northeast one and it's governed by the animal sign of ox because it's the year of the ox. It's also said that if you yourself have an animal sign that clashes with the year or you yourself, they have the animal sign of the ox, that you can wear the Paiyuu for protection. But it's supposed to literally just bring protection in a piece what is known as the grand duke or the Tai soy. The reason for metal is because it actually is supposed to control the energies that are coming in.

Remember everything is just those five elements. I believe Jupiter's the element of wood which would actually clash the the metal, but for some reason they kind of talk about controlling it as it's an earth element. I don't know. That's something I'm really not too familiar with, but I do know the metal is actually supposed to control the energy of the grand duke. Again, I wouldn't really put too much thought into it or too much stock into that because to add a metal cure or metal adjustment to your home, it really does have to be a larger amount of metal.

A small little metal statue is not enough metal to have actual element added to your home. So here, this more kind of governs the placement of the Paiyuu. In this case, you would probably be treating him more as a sort of deity or a helper which I'm totally on board with. That's what you would like to do, but when you I think you should really regard him also. So I don't think it's just something you should just throw somewhere.

This tab is impositioning a Paiyuu indoors. So first of all, you do not want to point his head directly to the door because the front door is the precinct of another god. Second, you don't want to put it towards a mirror because the life from the mirror will make Paiyuu feel nervous. And third, you don't want to put it against your head, I guess when you're sleeping probably because it said to believe to do yourself harm. So I will say this pretty much for ultra placement, it's kind of the same thing.

You don't want your altar directly facing out of a door, mirrors because it's a little bit of just a clash and the energy there. So whatever placement you follow for ultra or deities, which I have a whole podcast on somewhere, if you look through, you can find one for ultra placement. I would follow when you're placing a Paiyuu out. So to bring this to a close, it says in Chinese mythology that dragon king had nine children and Paiyuu, of course, was amongst them. Dragons are believed to have supernatural powers in changing weather, ruling oceans.

And it's very naturally that all the suns are also powerful. So in term, Paiyuu is also powerful. In Chinese people's minds, dragons are simple of power and dignity. And that is also one reason why Chinese call themselves the descendants of the dragons. And that article is from visitbegining.com.

And here it also says, a Bayesian tourism. But either way, I'll put the link down below in the notes. To support the podcast, be sure to subscribe, we review and share with your family and friends who you think may be interested, especially if you found this content useful. To learn more about Feng Shui and Chinese metaphysics, follow the link to the website below.