Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice of the special placement and arrangement of objects and space in order to achieve harmony with the environment. Actually, Feng Shui is more than that. It is actually followed as a philosophy in life with its own set of principles to achieve harmony and oneness with the environment.

Chinese philosophy always believes in the oneness of everything. The earth, planets as well as humans exist in one system that has no superior parts. But each and any part of the system is able to disturb and cause disharmony in the system. That is why the philosophy of the Yin and Yang has become a big part of the practice of Feng Shui.

Feng Shui today has been used to aid people (at least to those who believe on it) on how to design and to arrange human built environments on spots that is supposed to have good "chi". When a perfect spot is mentioned in Feng Shui, what is meant is not only a location but also an axis in time. In Feng Shui, there are certain areas on earth that are said to be not suitable for humans to settle in and are best left in their natural state.

There are two branches in Feng Shui. One is the Landform Classification or the ti-li branch and the other is the Building characteristics, or the chai-yun branch. The Landform Classification tackles the study of how energy flows through various natural landforms such as mountains, valleys, rivers and how that energy connects with other landforms nearby. The Building Characteristics branch on the other hand tackles the study of how energy is flowing within a certain structure and how that flow can affect the occupants.

"Chi" (or Qi) is a term that is usually used in Feng Shui. The term means "flow of energy". In order to determine the flow of energy, Feng Shui experts make use of the Luopan. The Luopan is a geomantic compass used in traditional Feng Shui that consists of bands of rings arranged around a magnetic needle.

One of the most important of the rings in the said compass is the Pre-celestial ring which is closest to the center of the compass. It has trigrams imprinted around it that describes the realm of reality and the unchanging laws of existence. Through this ring, energy that is present in all things can be tapped in order to determine its flow in the surroundings.

Another important ring in the Luopan is the 24 Directions ring. It is usually the third ring from the center of the compass and is used to help determine the ideal direction of a site. The markings on this ring also correspond to the eight directions of the standard compass and if further divided into three sections each. The ideal direction to where a building must face should correspond to one of these different compass sections.