How Feng Shui Works

h i are both cheap. Yeah, um, unless they're saying kai for c h i, in which kids it's something totally different. Yeah, that's that would be the Greek letter correct. Um, that means energy. Are we going to pronounce this fung shui? I usually say fung chui fui, but it could go either way. I mean, it depends. If it's Mandarin that we're speaking, Chuck, Yeah, we should say fong shui fun. I guess I usually say it in Mandarin fun chui. If we're speaking in Cantonese, we would say fung suite. Okay,

So I guess we're gonna go with the Mandarin. Alright, great, okay with you. Yeah, and Uh I even looked up because I've always said Tao is um um. Yeah, that's right, right. Well, a lot of people say there's been some confusion. So I actually looked it up and this author, Derrek Lynn,

had a nice little thing. The first the misconception, he says, is that the first letter in t a o daw is an approximation of a Chinese sound that does not have an exact English equivalent, because apparently in England, I think they say Taoism. But he says that's actually not true. There is an equivalent, and it is a d And he said the misconception was created by an author who had no understanding of Chinese and that was spread around.

He did not name the author, but apparently as he had high academic standing, Jonathan Franz, and so he said it is Daoism if you're speaking in English, and that this author has uh spread a mistruth that there is no real translation. Nice. There you go. That was the

glossary of this episode pretty much. So, uh, well, let's talk about she first man, because fun is the the practice of allowing ch to flow in the best possible way, and she is the Chinese concept of the energy that pervades and permeates the universe, including us, and it is linked to Taoism and goes all the way back to sixth century BC. And um, like you said, it's uh, it's supposedly something that can't even be described in language.

But you did a pretty good job, I think for someone who uh supposedly is not supposed to be able to do that. The thing is, well, I'm obviously an incredible person. The thing is, um, this ch this energy can be blocked, it can fall out of balance. There's it's not self correcting necessarily. Sometimes it needs help, that's right.

And so when we inhabit an area, build a home, a community, palace, what have you, we need to build it in such a way that it's not going to block this chi or it's not going to um throw things out of balance, because we will be impacted negatively if it if that happens, that's right. Because in the East there is a long held belief that the space we inhabit is not just the space we live in, but we are actually connected to that uh spiritually and

with our energy. And um that the way you lay out your home and the way you build like even where you play your home on your property and the way you align it with the surrounding nature. It's actually very important part of it. Um. That is functual, which is translated literally as wind and water. Right, pretty neat. Um. A lot of people in the West have jumped on this train since the nineteen eighties. It's very uh popular thing to do. Um, often misguided attempts. Um. As far

as traditional functuation, Well, it's like a completely different school. Yeah, basically, um, not basically entirely, but um. A lot of people in the West also will poopoo this, and a lot of people in the East poopoo it. Now apparently only about a third of people in modern China even believe it is a thing. Um. Well, Chairman Mao rooted it out during the Cultural Revolution. Yeah, I mean it is. It is.

It's not illegal to practice it. It is illegal though, to start a business in China modern China where you say that you're doing functually. Um, But they can't really like, well, I guess you could allow the practice. They outlaw lots of stuff from what I've been told. But um, apparently the younger generation it's even less than a third. It's just kind of going the way of the Dodo. But hey, we picked up on it in California and then ran

with it. Yeah, you know, especially in the eighties. Yeah, sure, man, that was a super eighties thing. But a lot of people poopoo it though, as they do a lot of things in the ease and saying this is just a bunch of superstitious gobbadygook. There's no such thing as an energy flowing through your house or your body that needs to be aligned. So we're not here to uh, we're just gonna explain it to you exactly, So just save

your emails people. So, um, what's interesting about fung hui initially is that not not just China but also India lay claim to its origins. Actually, that's right, um, And remember I think you you did a pretty good job defining it. But which it's they're saying again, funcui is this practice of arranging your in have, your your abode, your life, your workspace, um in a way that allows

che to flow freely. That's right, okay, um. And there was there's evidence I think back three thousand years ago, no sorry years ago, so about BC there is evidence of what the Indians call Vastu Shastra, which is basically a translation of building science, which is that you should follow certain practices, use certain geometries to allow energy to flow so that you can prosper and not be harmed negatively. Yeah,

and uh, this is um been seeing many times. I've read a great article in UH, I think it was history today by guy named Anthony Evini called bringing the Sky down to Earth, with basically the idea that many many cities through history have been built with this concept in my and that the gods bringing the gods down to your city, Like you know, he's a stonehenge, Beijing, Washington, d c Uh and m this place in Mexico that I will pronounce as Theo t Hua Kan. I don't

know if that's right. It's like a Mayan ancient Mayan city, and they all have the same um philosophy of mine, which is apparently if you go to Beijing, it's very famous for its layout. As his d c. You can stand in Tienamen Square and you can draw a straight line up the bell and drum towers, straight through to the monument to the People's Heroes, to the Masoli liam of Mao z Dong on a perfect north south axis,

like everything is planned out. And this is I'm not saying Washington, d C. Was necessarily fung swid Fun said, and I know that you shouldn't use that as a verb, but I'm going to It works. But it's it's the idea like Stonehenge, that the it's the cities are aligned cosmically somehow with the stars in mind. And it can be as simple as um the entrance to the dwelling or the city, or the burial mound or temple or Stonehenge, whatever is aligned so that the sun comes right up

through it on the winter solstice or thing. That that is the basis of fung hui, and it does show up in other cultures across time. Yeah. One of the one of the famous cities that was laid out according to um, this Indian version of it, Vastu Shastra as um ankor Watt in Cambodia, very famous temple. Those were

built and I think the thirteenth century CE. So it's not evidence that the Indians were first, but there is evidence elsewhere that that there were Indian cities and buildings planned out according to these and the idea was is that a couple of thousand years later, some Indian monks, Hindu monks made their way into maybe to bed or Mongolia or China and started spreading the vast Shastra. And that's when China got their hands on it and turned

it into what we now recognize this functually. That's one interpretation of the origin of the whole thing. Yeah, and and either way, what both of them are doing is looking and taking into accounts, uh the five elements earth, water, fire, air, and space and how they affect uh, your your pad and um or your city, like you said, our community or temple um. And some people might say, well, this is you know, you might want to call it functual.

But I'm just building a house and I think we've got this lovely mountain view, and I like the sunrise to come up through my kitchen because I like a bright kitchen. So that's how I'm going to build my house. People that practice function, I would say, brother, that's function, that's a t s. You know, it's just how I like to build my house. And you know that. Yeah, And then they fight, that's right, They leg wrestle for domination. So that though, would be more Western functuation. And we'll

get into it. But Basically, the distinction between Western functional eighties function and Classic Functui UM is the amount of scientific formulae put into it, the amount of calculations at least that are put into it, the amount of thought. It's like Western function is Functui light and not even l I G h T like l I T E like that kind of eighties light. Yeah, well, we might as well talk about the schools. Then it's a great before we do. Though, sorry to interrupt the segua because

it was pretty good. We should say that UM. Most historians now believe that it was actually China that came up with Yeah, just the evidence is is just earlier for the idea that it originated with burials in China, Like you buried people a certain way and you built the burial grounds in a certain way, according to Functual. So what you're saying is they leg wrestled and he

won the leg wrestle. Very good. Uh So the different schools UM, there are a lot of variations, but the three main categories are the form school, which was from southern China, and that is heavily based on the environment. Like we were talking about Classic Functual, it's the oldest form and that's when you're talking about and back then it was practical because what they were trying to do

is build a safe place for your house to be. Um. So maybe you uh set your house up with the wind block at the mountains, with that landscape that slopes, or you know, the water flowing down to you is super important, so you may want to open your house up to that. But it was it was practical though, right exactly. Um. And another practical way of um figuring out where to put your house is found in the compass school. That one just forget about it. That's that's

the one I understand the most. This one makes the most sense to me. Yeah, because it's math and you're like weird like that, well a little maybe a little bit. But basically what this says is it's kind of like the form school where you're looking for different features of the landscape to to most benefit where to build your house.

But this is this is using that same kind of thought process but aligning it with magnetism and the stars to write right, well, you're using the stars to determine magnetism, like which way is north and south and that kind

of thing. But it does combine some math, Chinese astrology, and then fun sui together and you get what's called the compass school, which is also very frequently known as traditional Functui, and it includes a lot of detail old research to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do where your house is supposed to be facing, if it is facing a certain way, of what you can do to kind of correct it. There's just a ton of thought and calculation put into what we'll learn later is

called the Bogwa map. So that's that's mostly the traditional school is the compass school, and it's based on the idea that magnetism dictates which way your whole jam should be facing and oriented. And I think to the north is the right way. That's the right way, where as

far as your entry way, yes, okay uh. And then we have um what the Westerners have latched onto um the Black Hat sect or that's nomina it does or the Black sect Esoteric Buddhism Functional which was UM founded by Professor Thomas Lynn Jun who was known UM and believed to be an enlightened man and Um he basically came to the West and founded this sect of functual and it blew up and Um, Westerners, I love this one because it's the one that most easily translates to

an h G TV show, right, you know, like put this plant there, put a fountain there, put your door here and painted this color, and and you're going to be wealthy and successful. Don't put this there, don't put that there. It's it's a lot of object placement. So it's easy for us dummies over here to understand it's basically interior design pretty much. So we'll talk a little more about the distinction and then what some of the commonalities they have are right after this, so chuck the

black Hat school. It's hilarious to me, like, why would you call it that? I don't know. I'm sure there was a great reason I couldn't find it anywhere. What I found instead is that most people call it Western function, and a lot of functual practitioners pooh pooh Western. They're like this this is some like perversion of an interpretation

of functui. Yeah, it's it's americanized, um, and it's taught by people who don't even necessarily aren't functual masters, even though just if they can set up a website and say, pay me a thousand dollars, I'll come and tell you where to put your plants exactly. But Thomas lynn Un and his followers say, no, we had we had the basics, Like, yeah, definitely, traditional functual is very detailed, very um mathematically oriented. But we're still getting the same point across, coming to the

same conclusions and just an easier corner cutting way. That's right. Why go to all the trouble if you can get the same results. What's more Western than that? Good point? Uh? So should we talk about um the five elements a little bit? I guess yes. UM, Like I said, there is earth, fire, metal, water, and wood, and these are the phases through which the energy or the g or the key moves. And UM, I think this article said it very well. It's like a sort of a game

of rock paper scissors. If you look at a creative or productive UM way in which these elements can interact, uh, you have would producing fire, Uh, fire produces earth av as an ash, Earth produces metal, UM, metal produces water, water produces wood, metal producing water. Don't get that one, mm hmm, all the rest of them like yeah, made sense, Lie, refrigerator's metal and it has a water dispenser in the day. Yeah. Uh. And then you have the destructive. This is when it's

bad chi. And if you look at the little illustration on how stuff works on the on the first one, you have this great circle of arrows and it's just lovely, and this other one has a a nasty bunch of arrows just laying all over one another, and it's just a big mess. Yeah, like um would burdens earth. Yeah, nobody wants that. Water douses fire. That's a clear one. Sure, um metal chops would, Yes, it does, it does. There's

there's uh. So the the interaction between these elements in your house, or the way you arrange your house will determine whether these phases of CHI are destructive or productive in their interactions together. And if you have too much of one thing, you need to balance it out with something else productively exactly the other two for destructive. Our fire melts metal and earth blocks water like a damn. You don't want a damn. You want the water flowing. Baby.

You know you forgot hulk smash? Is that the other one? Yea, the final one, and then uh, the yin yang. We can't go any further. Without mentioning that. No, it's basically a really clever conception of chi. Yeah, opposite states of cheek, light and dark, night and day, young and old man woman. Sure, and there there's actually a way that it's supposed to

be properly represented. The white is supposed to be on top because the white represents in part heat, and the idea is that heat rises, but they're they're both constantly in motion. But if you ever see a yin and yang symbol displayed, though, the lighter one should be on top, that's right, and not only heat for the white, but masculinity and spirit and hardness and activity where it's yang by the way, Yeah, oh yeah, we didn't point that out, and it's not yang yang by the way. We I

used to say it that way. I think everybody did it, sure at some point, and yeah, I quipped in my early forties, Um, it's yes. Uh. The yen h is femininity, femininity, matter, nighttime, coldness, softness, passivity, and as long as you want those things balanced and the way they just fit together in that little circle. Man, it's just like it's pleasing to the eye. And I think that's kind of says it all. You know, it

just looks nice. It's not jagged. It's like it's like two people just cuddling up, you know, in the form of a tattoo you wish you hadn't gotten. That's right with some maybe Chinese characters that you don't know what they mean any longer. Uh there, Um, well, I guess we're the bagua right, Yeah, so this has made sense to me. Right. Um, Remember what we're dealing with here is she. She flows through the five elements, and you

deal with the five elements in your house. To figure out where in your house you need a little more of one element than another, you have to construct a Bogua map. Yeah, like this is where the rubber meets the road. We've been talking in esoteric terms. But if you're like, great, dudes, what does this mean for my freaking living room? This is what it means for your freaking living room. Yeah. And the Bogua map is based on boxes squares. They're the basic units of um of

Functionali nine squares three by three. Uh. And you take those squares and somehow this is really clever too. But even though there's nine squares, you can take them and turn them into a hexagon. If you take the center square and convert that into well as center, and then the eight boxes around it become eight sides of a hexagon. If you shave off a little here or there, and

all of a sudden you have are is a bogwa. Yeah, and they can represent color as well as um these elements as well as for the actual map that you're going to use UM for laying out your home aspects of your life, like you know, career and wealth and uh, prosperity and love and marriage and things like that. Right, So there's multiple meanings. And it also is if you've seen the TV show Lost, they totally ripped it off

with the dharma collective symbol. It is just that is nothing more than the bogwa grid with the yin yang in the center right, and the yin yang is frequently represented in the center is yellow correct, yep. Yellow is the center of the Bogua map, which is actually the center of this nine squared box called the low shoe square UM. And in each of the different boxes there is a static representation. So this is this is what

you need to know about the Bagua map. It is hexagon that the placement is always the same what you do is you take your Bagua map and you oriented a certain way over your house, over your your actual house or the room in your house or something like that, and that's what changes. So if you look at the Bogwa square, the yellow is always center and then black,

which represents water and career um is always at the bottom. Okay, yeah a k A supposed to be the entrance to that room or your home, Okay, exactly, So yeah, it's not necessarily always at the bottom, it's always at the entrance. Well, you placed the bottom at the entrance, so if I were to walk into my house, you can either visualize it or you can literally draw this uh square. You want the bottom which is uh the bottom, center is career or water. Bottom right is helpful people in travel,

bottom left is knowledge and self cultivation. You just want to find out where your front door is. In my case, mine is pretty much in the center of my home, which would be career, but it could fall if your doors on your left, it would fall under knowledge and self cultivation. So it's it's not like you move the map over to to to help yourself out. Like where your door is is where it is. You can move it if you want, Yeah, you could move your door.

But basically the map is just supposed to be static, okay. So and it's static, like you said, it's oriented um with the black on the entrance, right, no matter where the entrance is, the black is on the the black is there. So when you orient your your black box onto your entrance, what you're doing then is using your Bogwa map to show you how you need to change your house in order to maximize the flow of chee through it. Yeah, it's basically And by the way, you

shouldn't supposedly use any additions build you should do those separately. Okay. So if you if you're living room has a big new addition to the lefty like, you shouldn't even include that. So basically you're what you're doing is you're you're dividing your space up into zones according to this grid. And so if you were to look at my house according to the low shoe square, uh, my TV would be in the wealth and prosperity corner, which is probably not good.

You're gonna make money on TV. That didn't exactly happen. Uh, My couch is the knowledge and self cultivation. I'm not sure what that means. And then my sun room would be helpful people in travel, that's what that means either. And in the center is my coffee table. The if I wanted to have good cheat to have a yellow rug there, Yeah, but I don't, but you should. We have some nice tile squares of varying colors, so you can do that, chuck for every room of your house.

And you're supposed to like, like you just said, well, now I know where I should put a yellow rug in my in my house, Like you would want to put that in the center of where the Bogua map falls over that room, right, Um you might also so for example, um, if you just kind of had a dead space where the red boxes which is for fame and reputation, and you want to foster that kind of thing, man,

there's a dead space there. Um, you would put something like awards there, animal related items, maybe a stuff jackalopet or something would be a good spot for that or a good thing for that spot. Um. And so you basically what you're doing is using the Bogua map to say you're just cross referencing spots of your house. And when you add these things and basically do interior decorating. Um,

you can maximize a floachi. Yeah, if you look at my master bedroom and bathroom, I have a bad functuation because right in that top left corner wealth and prosperity is my toilet. Oh yeah, so supposedly you're flushing it all down the toilet. They say you should not put your bathroom or your toilet specifically in your wealth grid

right square. So what we've just described is what a Western practitioner would do, because again, Western functionali has a lot to do with interior decorating, and so too does to an extent um, traditional functional. But a traditional functional practitioner, Um, if they came to your house and they used the Bogua map over your house, they would they wouldn't just align it to an entrance. They would align it to a magnetic direction. I'm pretty sure it's north. I think

I think you're right. But the black the black um square in the Bogua map would be oriented in that direction, so it wouldn't necessarily be facing your entrance. And so there's this kind of It reveals this really big distinct action between Western functual and traditional functual. Whereas with Western functually it's like, oh, we'll just line it up to the entrance, and maybe you've got a problem with your toilet flushing, your your fame away in your bathroom, or

your money away in your bathroom. With traditional functual, there's no getting around it. It's once it lays over your house. According to Magnetic North, what it gives you a really clear picture of what you're gonna have to do, and you may have to tear down your house and start over and rebuild facing the right way. Um. It could reveal a lot of real problems with your house. Um, and you may have to fill in more areas than others.

Whereas if you're just orienting each room based on its entrance like in Western functual, there's um, you're not gonna find quite as many problems in a lot more easy solutions. That makes sense also with a traditional functional consultant who um is basically telling you what you need to do with your house, they're gonna do research on your else itself too. They're gonna find out when it was built, when the roof wasn't closed. That's a big one too.

And then they're going to also create this Baguo map and a chart based on Chinese astrology as well, because time factors in a lot with traditional functual way more than Western. Again, Western is very um, quick to the point and just put some stuff here. Like another example that people criticize Western functual and kind of point like it's just basically um. Interior design is plaid is considered

a form of the wood element. So if you have too much plaid, like a plague couch in a room, you might need to encounter that with like a little fountain or something like that. But where where did the idea that plaid was would come from? It's definitely not traditional Chinese. I don't think so. I don't think they have plaid in China, do they? I don't think so.

But that raises another thing to another criticism of Western functual is that very frequently um functual consultants in the West will be like, oh, you just need to add a food dog, you know, like that kind of lion looking dog. So you need to add some you've seen a million times. Is it like a little statue or something you need to add like some Chinese pottery jagon mural or something. Yea, and traditional functual practitioners are like, yeah,

art counts, but um, it doesn't have to be Chinese. Right, So if you're consultant is selling you Chinese, aren't. This is right, this is essential. Yeah, that's not that's not correct with the red flag. Yeah alright, well we have some more um uh tips from funcui experts that will get to right after this. All right, so we're talking the Bagua grid. Like we said, it's all represented with

the different colors. Those colors also correspond to numbers, and they also correspond to aspects of your life or chi sounds confusing, it kind of is. Yeah, let's just say it. But here are some things that functual practitioners say will help unlock that chi um black, which is your career. Uh. They say a fountain or a mirror might be a good thing to have. Their blue, which is skills and wisdom.

Maybe that's where you put your computer workstation or your library okay yeah books, yeah, books green your family Maybe that's where you want to put your family photos and you want to arrange them nicely too. Yeah. Supposedly, if you have your family photos out of order in your green section, um, you're gonna have misbehaving kids. Yeah, actually that's the white zone. That's children. Oh sorry, that's okay, but yeah, that's that's that's what they say. If you

want good kids, keep those photos nice. I'm not sure about that one. Uh, purple is your prosperity zone, and that's where you want to have it, says healthy plants. Don't put your dying plants there, or sailing ships. I guess that's just um sailing towards prosperity. I guess maybe don't don't put a painting of a sinking ship. No, that that's that is western function there. Yeah, sure that you don't like that. That whole kind of psychology would be detrimental to the health of the area. Yeah, why

would you want that anyway though? Like good paints is sinking ship? Yeah? Um, a depressed sea captain probably would be. My guess. Red is famine reputation. That's where you want to put your various awards. Um, so yeah, we got a couple of those, and your jackalope head your jackalope yeah, animal animal related things. You're right, we should lay out our next studio, like according to funk dude, we totally should.

You know, I just noticed is red supposedly is what you want to put on the back of your chair to block a bad cheek. And we've got a huge red foam thing in between us and Jerry. Oh wow, so we gotta get rid of that. Oh I was gonna say that explains why I've been able to put up with her cheek for so long. Now, Jerry, she is the good flow our way, So we need to open that up in our new place. Um. Pink love and relationships, that's where you want to put maybe photos

of your family or paired items. Again with the family photos, yeah, I don't have that many family photos. Paradig items that's cute, that makes sense, like book ends, salt and pepper shakers. Uh. Boxing gloves, Um, that's where you hang your boxing gloves. Um. Remember Joe Garden from The Onion with those giant boxing gloves he had. Yeah, those were so much fun. He had a thing where he just wanted to get as many people to pose with those as possible and take

a swing at him. Uh. White what we already mentioned with children or creativity, that's where you might want to put some art or pictures of your little brats, um, gray travel um or helpful people but you're souvenirs from Disneyland there and not just Disneyland any trip you've taken. Sure the Disney company wants you to just put Disney souvenirs there though. Uh. And yellow Finally, health um pottery and stone objects will help unlock your chee there. Yeah.

But speaking of Disney Hong Kong, Disneyland, they apparently had a functuated expert consulted and uh they made some changes because of that consultation. Yeah. Probably that was probably a nice paying gig. The yeah, you know, because someone was like catchy yea or they were saying e jing anyway a. The the open on September twelfth, because they were told that was a lucky day according to the astrological chart.

Their consultant drew up. They changed the entrance by twelve degrees obviously it was a traditional um functui practitioner uh, and added some boulders. Apparently one of the restaurants has a projection of a fire, which to me that wouldn't count, but maybe it does. That seems pretty Western to me because one of the big bases of Western function is psychology.

If traditional function is based on magnetism and astrology. Western functui is based on psychology, and it is as simple as you don't put a painting of a sinking ship in the office of a business that's struggling to stay afloat because the mind makes those kind of associations and it messes up your cheek. That's right, um, And a lot of this stuff as well. Like we said, UM, I think, like you just mentioned maybe like it just

seems like common sense. Um, like a horseshoe shaped building that opens up into a courtyard, it's gonna feel good, it's pleasing. Um. Functual practitioners say that's energy. Or hey, don't don't build a house on a dead end street, um, because it blocks the GI I had a friend who lived at a dead end street and it just felt like every time I went over there, I felt closed in and sort of weird. Did he end up killing his whole family? He did not. He did move though. Um.

They were saved. They were thanks to him moving. Um your office A lot a lot of times these days people will um their new offices. They will take this into account. Some very famous people like Richard Branson and Donald Trump, who enlisted the help of punctual experts to design their offices because they want that Chi and ergo money flowing. Yeah, you don't have to be a Richard Branson or Donald Trump to arrange or office, whether it's

a cubicle or what have you. UM, so that you can maximize the flow of chief, you want to do a little messing around. Supposedly, the one one one thing that you want to ensure as much as possible is that you're facing the entrance to your office. UM. That way, the chief flows correctly towards you, not towards your back. You don't want the chea at your back. No, remember the Southern China um, the Southern China Functui placement, the

form school UM. Like you you put your the entrance of your house is facing away from a hill, so the back of your house backs up to a hill. So the chief flows correctly. Same thing. You want the entrance to your office to be flowing towards you, facing it if you If you can't do that, then you just put up a mirror so you can reflect the chief towards you. Yeah, that makes sense. Like you said, you want to put something red on the back of

your chair to block the chief from your back. Yeah, I see now that they think about it, this isn't so bad in here because the the red is to our side. It's coming in that door and bouncing off of that right on to us. So Jerry's really the one is getting the short end of the cheese stick here, really short short into the cheese stick. Um. What else can you do? You can put a fountain or a plant. Um, honestly,

water and wood. Uh. And they said even the picture of a waterfall in your cubicle could help your chi your workplace. Che Again, there's a lot of disagreement about what works and what doesn't with traditional function. It's like you need to know where magnetic north is and you need to orient your building according to that, and whatever you do inside is almost irrelevant. Yeah, get rid of

those fluorescent lights though they all agree on that. Sure know anything about cheat to know that fluorescent lights are terrible for you? Agreed? Do you anything else? No? U, this is it's pretty good overview, I think, right, sure, you feel good about it. I feel better than I expected. How's your g It's fine? Yeah, all right, it's it's not out of balance, it's not jumping for joy. It's

just it is today got you. Uh. If you want to know more about chi or fung shui or any stuff like that, you can type those words in the search bart how stuff works. And since I said that it's time for a listener mail, I'm gonna call this g e D success story. Hey, guys, got my g E D way back in so I could attend college. Back then, the University of Illinois Chicago co Flames allowed you and as a freshman, if you graduated high school and had a pulse, they called the student body. After

the first year, though you didn't perform, you're out. I did reasonably well there and ultimately ended up at the University of Cambridge in England, got my pH d in archaeology there and worked in the field for a few years. Um. I am now a stay at home dad of three boys, five,

three and one living in uh Karl's Rule, Germany. One of the things I love most about the American education system is that a guy who dropped out of high school at seventeen still have the opportunity to attend college and ultimately end up with a PhD from one of the greatest universities in the world. Thanks for another great episode. Guys's been listening since two thousand eight and actually remember the before Chuck days. Uh and that is from Chris, So way to go, Chris, Way to go, Chris. That

is pretty awesome story. G D archaeologists stay at home dad five three in one sounds like he's doing it right. Nice job, Chris. If you want to let us know about your personal success story, we love hearing about those. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff

you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at house Stuff Works dot com, and as always, join us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics because our Stuff Works dot com. M