Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Pokemon Luo Pan - Gotta catch'em all?

Feng Shui has always been a mystery for me.  Ya know... like why a Feng Shui master can tell you that you're gonna go broke in a few month's time with no solid reason.  So I started searching about this whole Feng Shui thing.  Guess what!  I actually opened a door to a vast world of knowledge that any man on earth would wanna know!

There is one part about Feng Shui talks about the 12 Earthly Branches and 10 Heavenly Stems.  The 12 Earthly Branches are represented by the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac which are the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig, whereas the 10 Heavenly Stems are represented by Yin and Yang of each of the 5 elements namely Fire, Wood, Earth, Metal and Water.  There is also the 8 directions thing in Feng Shui (North, South etc...).  All these have a Chinese character to represent each of them and a special name to call them, Feng Shui wise, and you gotta recognize them if you are into Feng Shui because in Feng Shui there is a tool called a 'Luo Pan' that is used to take directions and see which Heavenly Stem or Earthly Branch or non-cardinal direction corresponds with the direction taken.

A Luo Pan usually comes with all those Chinese characters.  You can find ones with their Pin Yin written in alphabets but you still gotta know which is which.  Personally, I suck at Mandarin and I wept while writting Chinese characters when I was in at kindy.  But now that I've seen what Feng Shui is and wanna delve deeper into it, I came up with a cool idea that could possibly help me.

Presenting.... 

The Pokepan!  A most basic Luo Pan with 12 kinds of Pokemon representing the 12 Earthly Branches and 4 elements representing the 4 Heavenly Stems that are visible in a Luo Pan.  I didn't draw that except for the grid lines and the background.  The directions are written by me of course.

  • Marill - Zi
  • Tauros - Chou
  • Raikou - Yin
  • Pichu - Mao
  • Gyarados - Chen
  • Arbok - Si
  • Rapidash - Wu
  • Mareep - Wei
  • Aipom - Shen
  • Combusken - You
  • Houndaur - Xu
  • Swinub - Hai

I picked these Pokemon because they match the 12 animal signs.  But these pokemon don't have elements that the real 12 signs are supposed to have even though I found a water mouse, Marill, for Zi and fire horse, Rapidash, for Wu.  For Mao, I used a Pichu because I forgot that there's a rabbit type pokemon called Nidoran and I only remembered it after I finished making the Pokepan.  Pichu looks like a rabbit and is cuter than Nidoran anyway.  :P

As for the Heavenly Stems, I used the element icons form Pokemon cards.  In the Pokepan, big icons are for Yang elements and small icons are for Yin elements.

I've always been a Pokefan so it might probably be able to help me get a hold of those 12 Earthly Branches easily.  For those out there who are also Feng Shui beginners, and are also Pokefans, and are struggling with this 24 mountain ring in the ordinary Luo Pan, as Feng Shui people usually call it, you can use this to help you.  It's fun in a way.  Besides, pictures help a lot in memorizing things.

Although the Pokepan is a also a kind of Luo Pan, too bad it's just an aid in learning Feng Shui and can't be put to use.  But still, it's one of a kind.^^ d


1 comment:

Josh Tam said...

Coool but here's my version:

Rattata - Zi
Miltank - Chou
Arkanine - Yin
Nidoran - Mao
Dragonite - Chen
Seviper - Si
Ponyta - Wu
Ampharos - Wei
Slakoth - Shen
Torchic - You
Snubull - Xu
Spoink - Hai

Hahaha

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