Face Regions
Career Palace
Palace
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Origin 1465 to 1620
The Career Palace, or guan lu gong, literally the palace of office and salary, is one of the twelve palaces of mian xiang, the vertical band at the very centre of the forehead directly above the point between the eyebrows. It is read as the seat of rank, promotion and public standing, distinct from the Wealth Palace's reading of accumulated money. A broad, smooth, unblemished centre forehead here is read as a sign of steady advancement and public recognition, while a narrow, sunken or scarred one is read as an obstacle to promotion. As with the rest of mian xiang, this is a traditional interpretive practice, not a finding of medical science.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Origin PeriodFixed in its present form by the Shenxiang quanbian, the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644) compilation Livia Kohn describes as the most complete and most widely available textbook of Chinese physiognomy, though face reading as a practice in China is attested centuries earlier. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerThe twelve palaces are part of the classical apparatus of Chinese face reading set out in the Shenxiang quanbian, described by Livia Kohn as the most complete and most widely available textbook of Chinese physiognomy, dated to the Ming dynasty, between 1465 and 1620, and drawing on earlier surviving material. 1 Origin of the NameGong, palace, is the term shared by all twelve areas in this scheme, casting each life domain as its own precinct of an imperial court mapped onto the face; the same architectural metaphor names the three courts and organizes mian xiang's reading of the whole head. 1 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryLargely abandoned as a comparative category 1 Learn More
A Palace Named for Office and Salary
The Career Palace's name, guan lu gong, translates as the palace of office and salary, terminology drawn directly from the imperial civil service examination system that structured advancement for educated men throughout the Ming dynasty. Guan names an official post; lu names the salary that post carried. Reading the vertical band at the center of the forehead, directly above the point between the eyebrows, for a person's prospects of rank, promotion and public standing was therefore not a metaphorical borrowing from bureaucratic life, it was a direct application of the examination system's own vocabulary to the face, at a time when passing the imperial examinations and receiving an official appointment was the single most consequential path to status a family could pursue.
A broad, smooth, unblemished center forehead is read as a sign of steady advancement and public recognition, while a narrow, sunken or scarred one is read as an obstacle to promotion. The palace is kept deliberately distinct from the Wealth Palace at the nose tip, since guan lu names rank and official salary specifically rather than money in general, preserving within the face reading system the same distinction between official position and personal fortune that structured real careers under the examination system the term itself comes from.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
One of the Twelve Palaces (shier gong), the facial zones each mapped to a specific life domain in Chinese physiognomy.
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