Readings at the meeting point of East and West — now as a monthly letter, delivered by post.
Subscribe — $16 / month The LettersEvery month I write one fengshui letter — the month’s stars, what to move and what to leave alone, and one small ritual — set like a Tang travel document and stamped with the month’s vermilion seal, with a different hand-drawn talisman (符) in every envelope.
The Yearly Fortune and Zodiac Year readings arrive as folded scrolls — written vertically, they unroll to hang, and still mail flat as letters.
First letter $8.80 — a lucky number — with code LUCKY88 at checkout.
I work at the meeting point of East and West: Western astrology and tarot held beside Taoist cosmology, the I Ching, and the five elements. Together, these traditions offer ways of noticing patterns—following the movement of qi through a life, a relationship, and a room.
My practice grows directly out of my academic research on Taoism and my work as an ethnographic documentarian and multimedia artist. I read for people who want something more than a forecast: a frame for the choices in front of them, held with care.
I have consulted on Fengshui in Los Angeles, apprenticed at a TCM herbal apothecary in New York, and train in Tai Chi. I have an M.A. in Integrative Studies from Brown University and a B.A. in Economics and Peace Studies from Notre Dame. My research, writing, and translation work continue alongside my practice.
Readings offered in English and Mandarin · 中英文皆可
"Fu" is a romanization — a single sound that, in Mandarin's four tones, maps onto dozens of different characters, each its own word. The name carries a cloud of meanings; these are the ones I hold closest.
Second tone, fú — the heart of it. 符, the talisman: the Daoist ritual charm (符箓), and "to accord with." 福, fortune, blessing, and good luck. 伏, to lie hidden — as in 伏羲 Fuxi, who drew the eight trigrams of the I Ching. 拂, to brush away, the gesture of the Daoist whisk. 茯, as in 茯苓, a healing root.
First tone, fū. 趺, the cross-legged sitting of meditation; 孵, to incubate or hatch; 敷, to apply, as one does medicine.
Third tone, fǔ. 抚, to soothe and comfort; 辅, to assist and complement; 腑, the body's hollow organs in Chinese medicine; 府, a mansion or seat.
Fourth tone, fù. 富, wealth and abundance; 复, to return — the I Ching's hexagram of Return; 赋, to bestow, and an old form of poetry; 馥, fragrance.
A talisman, a blessing, a soothing, a return. One name, many ways of paying attention.
Bring a question, a decision you're weighing, or nothing in particular. We lay out the cards and talk through what they bring up.
Your natal chart read in depth, or a focused look at current transits and timing.
Reading the placement, energy, and flow of qi — for a year ahead, a life, or a space. From a single sitting to a full home or workplace.
Yearly Fortune & Zodiac Year readings can also arrive as scrolls, by post →
A gentle, entry-level Tai Chi class, outdoors in the morning air — settling into breath, posture, and slow, unhurried movement. No experience needed and nothing to memorize. Forty minutes of movement, then twenty more over tea and dim sum. View schedule & details →
Study and practice the 24-movement form over twelve weeks — a steady weekly grounding in breath, balance, and the movement of qi, built slowly so the form becomes your own.
Cook with the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine — seasonal, balancing dishes made to nourish according to your constitution. All ingredients provided. View a sample menu →
Hands-on sessions in everyday Traditional Chinese Medicine self-care — ear seeding, facial gua sha, body gua sha, and hair health. View class details →
Hands-on Taoist craft workshops — making objects that hold intention and energy, from crystal and the Five Elements to seasonal pieces, often within a traditional Cháxí tea setting. View past classes →
A five-pour tasting mapped to the five elements — sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty — each met by a contrasting bite and reset with a palate cleanser. Build your own salted-plum liqueur to take home. View the tasting →
My readings are grounded in scholarship. I study how Taoism refuses clean lines between opposites — being and non-being, soft and hard, masculine and feminine — and what that way of seeing offers a life.
A translated anthology and critical introduction of seven chapters of the Dao De Jing and seven poems by six poets across roughly 1,500 years (Xiao Gang, Bai Juyi, Chen Weisong, Yuan Mei, Wu Zao, Mu Cao) under one frame: that Daoism's refusal to draw clean lines between opposites—being/non-being, male/female, soft/hard—makes separating "queer" from "normal" desire a non-question. The anthology frames same-sex attachment as a continuously legible thread in Chinese literature for fifteen centuries, and that what changed was not Chinese desire but Chinese discourse, under Western medical and Christian pressure. The introduction lays out a translation philosophy organized around comprehensibility (drawing on Venuti, Appiah, Spivak, Schleiermacher), then walks through four case-study decisions—rendering Dao as "the Way," translating baorong as "indulging" rather than "take care of," handling Yuan Mei's pacing with em dashes, and lowercasing Mu Cao's farewell—each chosen to let the texts argue, in their own register, that the reader's categories (queer/straight, Western/Eastern) aren't the ones the texts were composed on.
A hybrid scholarly essay and personal manifesto arguing that China's tang ping ("lying flat") movement is not "resistance," as Western press frames it, but the latest expression of a 2,500-year Chinese lineage of philosophical withdrawal (Zhuangzi, Tao Yuanming, Han Shan, the Seven Sages) grounded in the Daoist principle of wu wei. Lying-flat ("bed-rotting") is a quiet form of "punk" — refusal-without-noise that canonical punk theory (Hebdige, Muñoz) doesn't account for — and this withdrawal becomes newly available to women when feminists refuse the social-reproductive labor that historically subsidized male sages. The final sections read my own stand-up comedy and experimental films as camp-inflected attempts to live this nihilist, validation-refusing stance against American Gen Z's self-congratulatory moral performance.
Also ongoing: ethnographic fieldwork in China on Nüshu, the women-only script of Hunan, and Signal's Universe, an animated series built on that research.
Hand-drawn Daoist talismans (符) for protection — brushed and charged in the traditional way, made for a person, a home, or a journey.
Fortune talismans (福) to draw blessing and good luck — for the new year, a new venture, or a fresh start.
A Queer Chinese Anthology — six poets across roughly 1,500 years, in a designed edition. Preview →
My translation of the Dao De Jing, the foundational Taoist text, with a critical introduction.
"Fu has a really interesting big-data perspective on astrology — definitely helped guide me through some of the questions I had."
"Left the room shaking, 'nuff said."
"This is my third year coming in for a yearly Feng Shui reading — and I'll keep coming for as long as I can."
Available for in-person readings in the Bay Area. Tell me what's on your mind and we'll find the right kind of sitting.
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