What Is White Wax Metal (Bai La Jin)?
In a Nutshell
The NaYin of the Geng Chen and Xin Si stem-branches: gold still in the ore — pure in substance, its edge not yet showing.
Quick facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Stem-branches | Geng Chen, Xin Si |
| NaYin element | Metal |
| Signature image | Jade-like slices from Mount Kunlun — a treasure's body, not yet polished |
What is White Wax Metal?
White Wax Metal is one of the thirty NaYin (Melodic Elements) groups of the sexagenary cycle, covering the two stem-branches Geng Chen and Xin Si. The sixty stem-branches are taken two at a time, in order, forming thirty groups; each group has its own NaYin name, and the Geng Chen–Xin Si group is called "White Wax Metal."
Note that a NaYin's element often differs from the elements of its own stem and branch. Here, the stem Geng is Metal and the branch Chen is Earth, while the NaYin is Metal — a coincidence in this group, not a rule. Always look the NaYin up in the chart rather than guessing.
"White wax" fixes the image: gold white in color and still unrefined. The *San Ming Tong Hui* explains that the metal of Geng Chen and Xin Si "dwells in the land of fire and earth: the qi has already sprouted, but the gold is still in the mine" — like slices of jade from Mount Kunlun: the metal's nature newly formed, its substance pure, its sharpness not yet revealed. Where Sword-Edge Metal is hardness at its extreme, White Wax Metal takes the inward, restrained side.
How to look it up: match the stem-branch of your Year Pillar or Day Pillar against the NaYin chart. For example, 2000 was a Geng Chen year and 2001 an Xin Si year, so anyone born in those years carries White Wax Metal as their Year Pillar NaYin; a Geng Chen or Xin Si Day Pillar works the same way. MoZhu's built-in NaYin lookup tool lists the NaYin of all Four Pillars automatically from a birth time.
In the Zi Ping method — the dominant school since the Song dynasty — the Day Master is the core of a reading and NaYin is only auxiliary reference. Names like White Wax Metal are essentially the ancients' evocative nicknames for stem-branch pairs; understanding the imagery helps you read classical texts, but nothing should be inferred from the name alone. This page is for study and reference only.
Classical sources
"The metal of Geng Chen and Xin Si dwells in the land of fire and earth; the qi has already sprouted, but the gold is still in the mine."
(Rendered from the classical Chinese original.)
Source: *San Ming Tong Hui* (Comprehensive Treatise on the Three Destinies), Book 1, *Lun Wu Xing* (On the Five Elements — the section on Metal)
Plain-language reading: White Wax Metal is the image of unrefined gold — gold dwelling amid fire and earth, its qi already sprouting but the ore not yet smelted, like jade slices from Mount Kunlun: pure in substance, its edge not yet shown.
*For entertainment purposes only.*