About Ming Shu

A modern reading of an old pattern.

Ming Shu translates BaZi — the Chinese Four Pillars system — into clear, contemporary language for identity, relationships, and timing.

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What Ming Shu is

Ming Shu is a design-forward BaZi reading app. It reads the stem-and-branch pattern of a birth moment and turns it into an editorial self-portrait: Day Master, Five Elements balance, guiding element, daily rhythm, relationship match, and decade Luck Cycles.

The goal is not to make life feel fixed. The goal is to make patterns easier to notice.

How the calculations work

The calculation layer follows core Four Pillars ideas: year, month, day, and hour pillars; Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches; hidden stems; Ten-God relationships; solar-term month boundaries; Rat-hour day-boundary handling; and decade Luck Cycles.

Solar termsMonth pillars are treated through seasonal boundaries rather than ordinary calendar months.

True solar timeBirth city and longitude can shift the effective hour used for the chart.

Hidden stemsBranch interiors are weighted so the Five Elements reading is not just surface-level.

Luck cyclesTen-year 大運 periods are read as changing conditions, not fixed fate.

Where the language comes from

The underlying symbolic system comes from BaZi / Four Pillars traditions. Ming Shu's specific names, readings, relationship framing, and daily lines are our own editorial layer — written to be understandable to someone who knows nothing about Chinese metaphysics.

That is why you may see both traditional terms and plain-life translation: Fire becomes warmth, visibility, expression, and momentum; Metal becomes standards, clarity, boundaries, and refinement.

What Ming Shu is not

Not a scientific diagnosis. BaZi is an interpretive art, not a laboratory instrument.
Not a prediction service. Luck Cycles describe conditions and timing pressure, not guaranteed events.
Not a substitute for professional advice. Do not outsource medical, legal, financial, or psychological decisions to an app reading.
Not a verdict on relationships. Match reads potential shape. Two people write the actual story.

Privacy by design

Ming Shu works in guest mode first. Your own chart can stay local on your device until you choose to sign in. Private share links are time-limited and exclude exact clock time. Payments are handled by Stripe.

We use Plausible for lightweight product analytics. It helps us understand whether people generate charts, complete matches, and use sharing — without sending birth dates, saved people, emails, or payment-card data.

Who builds it

Ming Shu is built independently and tested with early readers across New York, Singapore, London, and Europe. The product improves through sharp feedback: what feels unusually true, what feels unclear, and what sounds too generic.

For product feedback, billing questions, or corrections, write to hello.filota@gmail.com.

This page does not claim institutional authority over BaZi. It explains how this product is built, what it uses, and where its limits are.