How Chinese Given Names Actually Work — and Why Everyone Picks the Same Ones
A person could once carry four names: a milk name, a generation character shared with every cousin, a given name, and a...
Guides & How-tos · Worked examples · Real numbers
Chinese Culture guides
Step-by-step how-tos, head-to-head comparisons and honest roundups — every guide worked through with current figures, then backed by a RECATOOLS calculator or AI-directory entry so you can act on it.
106 guides published
11 topic areas
Latest guide Aug 2026
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Tracing Chinese Ancestry in Southeast Asia: Start With How Your Name Is Spelled
Tan, Chan and Chin are the same character. Which one is on your IC records which dialect group your family belonged to,...
Dates, Calendars and Holidays Across ASEAN
Ask our working-days calculator how many working days Singapore has in 2026 and it used to say 252. The answer is 251 —...
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How a Luopan Actually Works: the Chinese Compass and Its 24 Mountains
An honestly-framed look at the Chinese geomantic compass as an instrument: the needle housing, the rotating plate, and t...
Feng Shui Kua Numbers and the Eight Mansions, Explained: One Formula, Eight Trigrams, Three New Years
An honestly-framed look at how Eight Mansions (八宅) is actually constructed: the Later Heaven trigram grid it runs on,...
The Chinese Zodiac Beyond Horoscopes: 12 Animals, 5 Elements, and How Compatibility Really Works
An honestly-framed look at how the Chinese zodiac is actually built: the twelve animals and the ancient Earthly Branches...
What Bazi Actually Is: Reading the Four Pillars of Destiny, for Beginners
A plain-English, honestly-framed look at how a Bazi (Four Pillars) chart is constructed: eight characters, ten Heavenly...
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