By Asher Jade for Environmental Graffiti

Wouldn’t it be useful to know almost anything about someone at a glance? What if you could assess whether or not a date was worth pursuing after the first meeting? For many thousands of years the Chinese have been reading faces and making fairly accurate assessments about people’s personality, what their interpersonal problems may be and how they fit into society.

Look at your face and divide it in the middle. No one has a perfectly symmetrical face, especially if your nose has been broken numerous times like mine has.

Now, look at the left side of your face. Do you have a mole, a scar, or a humongous ear (in relation to your right ear)?

The left side of your face, generally speaking, represents the yang, or male side. If you are a guy, this is defined as yourself, your male friends, father, brothers, etc. If you are a girl, this means the same thing, with the exception of the left side not representing yourself for obvious reasons.

The right side of your face is the yin, which is the feminine portion of the face. For guys, this is representative of your mom, sisters, female boss, etc. As for the girls, this side represents you, sisters, mom, or the crazy female coworker two cubicles down from you.

Hopefully you don’t have too many anomalies on the right side! If your right side is fuller (even slightly), you care more about the females in your life (or are self-centered, if applicable) according to this source. However, if you have a fuller left side, you care more about the males in your life (or are self-centered, if applicable). According to the Chinese, the nose is the most important “life point”. You have five of them actually: chin, forehead, cheeks, and nose. Look at your nose for a minute.

The nose represents wealth, hence it’s dominating importance. If you have a straight nose with a round tip and full nostrils of equal proportions on either side, you will have massive wealth (mine is similar to that description, with the exception that my nostrils are narrow and closed). Having narrow nostrils, like mine, are an asset. This means you can hold on to wealth better. The “flabbier” your nostrils are, the worse off you are with money and investing it wisely. Is your nose crooked or pointing off to one side more than the other? This is where your money is being spent on. (Refer to the yin and yang side explanation again). For example, your money is either going to your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your male children, etc. Ideally your nose is going straight down, indicating a balance of spending your wealth. (Having a nose that has been broken many times is perhaps not a good example!).

Many people in diverse cultures believe the eyes are the windows to the soul. This ideology is not limited to Eastern religions. Many professionals in law enforcement gauge what is going on with someone they come into contact with by judging their eyes for signs of drug/alcohol abuse, deception or cognitive impairment.

Look at your peepers for a moment. The colors of your eyes are inconsequential. (It’s a good thing, because my eyes are often two different, non-matching colors!). If you have a round, curvy eye shape, your personality is more emotional. A person with eyes like this has a logical mindset according to this source. Eyebrows following this pattern also have the same indication of an emotional mindset. If the eyebrows curve up, the person is more optimistic - either that, they are related to Spock. In contrast, someone with downward sloping eyebrows and/or eyes is considered more pessimistic. I wonder - if someone had colossal eyebrows that went everywhere and in all directions, would that make them more susceptible to multiple personality disorder?

The lips say a great deal about us, according to this source. If your lips are thin, you are likely argumentative. Full lips indicate that you are affectionate and emotional, kind, and loving. If your lips are well-defined, you have a good communication style (don’t skimp on the lip-liner on important first impression events). Just as with the eyes, an upwards mouth means you are more of an optimist, whereas with a downward sloping mouth, you are more negatively engaged with the world.

The ears are very important. You will find that many Chinese people opt to have plastic surgery on their ears (as many deformities can affect the ear area) because of what the ears indicate. Even a mere mole is a bad sign, particularly on the left ear, because that signifies having a problem with one's father. The Chinese have a patriarchal society. Ear augmentations or plastic surgery are second to rhinoplasty due to prominent importance in the culture. Good listeners are indicated by ears that lay flat. Though many don’t have ears that lie flat, some are lucky to be born with this trait. Propitious and favorable ears in the Chinese culture are long, thick, and enormous. Big ears indicate a good suitor, a great employee, and someone who is successful. For the Chinese, small ears are perceived negatively.

Finally, one is considered spiritual and to have a higher, transcendent understanding over the common person—a highly valued trait, if the top of the ears are above the eyebrows, accompanied by a big forehead. In Western societies, this is just characterized as a very ugly person, no matter what gender. If someone has a small forehead area in relation to the bottom half of their face, they are more earthly and grounded. Practicality can be a good thing, but having a huge forehead is prized.

Though the face is a standard feature to all animal kind, how one defines and perceives it is as unique as the culture one belongs to. In one part of the world, its people may pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on surgery to augment their ears, while on the other side of the world, big ears result in sobbing and lamenting of their foul genetics on a Saturday night. Perhaps the true message one can read in all of our faces is that we are never happy with what our Maker lovingly gave us!

From english.eastday.com:

Chinese doctors have used the ancient art of face reading since the time of Confucius as an aid to diagnosis and a way of helping their patients. Close observation of the face afforded them a deep knowledge of the personality of their patients.

There were also professional face readers during this time that combined the roles of priest, astrologer and counselor. They were well-educated men with great compassion for human frailty. The Chinese understood the concept that the face represents the energies, health and fortune of a person and they wished to live in harmony with these, and with the prevailing energies of the five elements, yin and yang, and the seasons. This wisdom has seen a huge resurgence in the West during the past 20 years with the growth of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, Feng Shui and Qi Gong.

Chinese face reading is as relevant today as it was in the past and its use is cross-cultural. We all have a blend of elements and all faces reflect part of nature pattern. Face reading first appeared in China during the 6th century BC, possibly as the specialty of magic men not affiliated to any religion. It is thought that they were probably Taoist shamans from rural areas such as Szechwan who specialized in non-traditional deviational arts. By 220 BC, the art of face reading was established in Chinese life and classic treatises, such as the Golden Scissors and Bamboo Chronicles, were written at this time.

The Principles of Face Reading:The starting principles of face reading are the cosmic energies of the five elements and yin and yang. The elements are symbols and represent qualities of energy within each person that are reflected in the face. An elaborate physical, psychological and emotional profile can be built up, incorporating the energies of the features, the life points of the face, the three divisions from top to bottom (forehead, mid face and lower face) which show the nervous, circulatory and digestive systems and the facial zones which represent the internal organs.

Each face is a map of the past, present and future. The past would be described as our inherited constitution, our mother’s pregnancy, our childhood and adolescence, with either difficulties or support in the family, and our early years as we start out in the world. The present reflects our health at the time of the reading. This is something we create ourselves. Coco Chanel said: Inappropriate diet, persistent negative emotions, drugs, toxins and stress all contribute to lines, congestion, and colors on the face. The facial zones affected are related to the internal organs under stress. In the same way that the feet are a microcosm of the whole in Reflexology, so the face shows the inner health status and the person behind the persona. The future is not predestined in Chinese philosophy: acts of compassion can lengthen one’s life, and taking greater care with health can resolve possible future symptoms. Sometimes destiny and the ups and downs of life can be improved by facial surgery? Correcting squints helps one’s fortunes during the years 35-40. However, nose jobs, which expose the nostrils and shorten the nose can affect the end of the 40s.

Balance and proportion are important in face reading, as in Chinese paintings. There needs to be harmony between the mountains (the yang element, represented in the face by the bones) and the rivers, (the yin element which is the soft tissue). Although a face may be considered beautiful by society, in face reading terms it may be too yin (upturned nose, large wide mouth, eyes too far apart, thin eyebrows). Many models have this look. In our language we have many expressions to describe character traits: pay through the nose, two faced, keeping one’s nose clean, chinless wonder? We may have forgotten how these came into a language in the first place, the mouth relates to communication, and the chin signifies determination, ambition and practicality. So, face reading can be used to sum up a person’s energies, to get a health read-out, to assess character, to help gain self knowledge and to plan for good health.

There are numerous ways to read a face in Chinese physiognomy: 3 Quarters, 8 Trigrams, 108 Spots, examining the shapes, the colors, the wrinkles and the moles, just to name a few. A master of face reader usually employs the combination of several techniques to gain multiple perspectives and perform cross-examination.

Following is a brief introduction to the 12 Houses method.1. Fortune House (Fude Gong)It gives an overview of your general fortune trend. An ideal Fortune House should be round, full and smooth with no visible marks, lines or scars. Flaws in these areas reflect problems in your life, which can be in the form of bad health, distressful relationships or money troubles.

2. Parents House (Fumu Gong)It is associated with Heaven Luck; in this regard its state is quite a testimony to the situation that your parents were in and your relationship with them. A forehead that is wide, round and shinning speaks of a good family inheritance, a comfortable upbringing and early achievement, while a small, bony or disfigured one illustrates an uneasy childhood.

3. Career House (Guanlu Gong)Again, being broad, round and smooth is the basic criteria to identify a good Career House. If on the top of that, you also have prominent cheekbones and protruding eyebrows, you shall have a great chance to achieve a great success in your chosen field.

4. House of Travel (Qianyi Gong)If it is in any way disfigured with scars or deep lines, you might be better off saying put. Furthermore, jobs or businesses involving transportation, tourism or import/export are, understandably, not your best choice.

5. Life House (Ming Gong)The key to your fortune is deposited here. Naturally, being smooth and shinny is ideal, which suggests a trouble-free life journey. If it is receded, dimpled or scared; or there are permanent horizontal lines between the brows; or eyebrows meet in the middle, you may face a bumping road ahead.

6. House of Siblings (Xiongdi Gong)Eyebrows and the areas directly above them represent it, and it also oversees your relationship with your friends and colleagues. The state of your hair has a direct connection to the physical conditions of your parents at the time when you were conceived, which means it has a lot to do with your genetic make-ups. Brows that are dark, thick, long, smooth, orderly and located high above eyes indicate a healthy hormone level that gives rise to affection, calmness and courage. If they look sparse, thin, pale, short, or chaotic, or too close to eyes, or marked with a scar, you could be tormented by your own physical or emotional states.

7. Assets House (Tianzhai Gong)Your eyes betray your intelligence and temperament, and the very quality of these dispositions plays important role in your asset acquisition endeavor. Good Asset Houses are constituted with eyes that are long with large pupils and clear whites, and up-eyelids that are broad and full. Deep-set or dazed eyes disclose dumbness, while recessed or narrow eyelids exhibit impatience. If the whites are colored with red streaks, and worse, if the streaks pass through a pupil, you should brave yourself for a severe storm when your financial aspect is concerned.

8. House of Marriage (Qiqie Gong)Being full and smooth in appearance indicates a happy marriage. A receded House however rings alarm bell on extra marital affairs. If the area bears visible spots, scars, black moles or messy lines, your marriage could be in serious trouble due to some unscrupulous conduct.

9. House of Children (Ernu Gong)This area is closely related to cerebellum and also governs your love and sex life, so again, being full and round is better than being flat or receded. Dim moles or slant lines across the area are especially undesirable, suggesting some problems regarding your own sex life or your children’s future development.

10. Health House (Jie Going)If the House is broken or marked with horizontal lines, or if it is stained with spots, marks or discoloration, you shall pay extra attention to your health, especially your digester system.

11. Wealth House (Caibo Gong)A nose that has high and straight bridge, big and round tip, full and fleshy wings, and invisible nostrils, not only indicates sound physical health, a positive mental attitude, also denotes success in career and abundance in wealth. On the other hand, a nose that is low, or crooked, pointed, or narrow, bony, or with contoured bridge, upturned tip, visible nostrils, reveal a problematic personality, a troublesome financial situation or a difficult career path. If blood vassals are clearly visible, or a dim blue color tones the surface, an illness or a money loss is on the way. When a nose turns bloody red, which is dubbed Fire in Lounge in Chinese physiognomy, it should be viewed as a serious warning sign - an impending disaster is near.

12. Popularity House (Nupu Going)This House rules your relationship with your colleagues, subordinates or younger generations, and foretells your situation in your old age. When they are round and full, you can expect to enjoy your popularity among your followers. But if it sharps off, or appears crooked or bony, you probably should forget your dream about being a politician. And what’s more, you’d better prepare for self-support during old age.

Marks, spots, scars on, and even shapes of your face can change over time, meaning your fate can alter through the years. You can utilize your Man Power (your attitudes - good deeds, better learning and hard work) and the Earth Power (your environment - favorable Feng Shui) to neutralize the Heaven Power (your time of birth - what you have inherited from your parents and your previous lives). Ultimately, you are the real creator of your own fate. When you change your heart, you change your face; when you change your face, you change your fate.