Chinese orientation and tradition
(Abstract)
The Chinese tradition attaches a great importance to two complementary principles known as yin and yang and brought together in the symbol carrying the same name. Yang depicts the light or the white half of the symbol and yin the darkness or the black half. The way yin and yang interact within this common representation derives from the double spiral drawing separating both white and black halves of the symbol and the solar orientation mode adopted in ancient China.
The yin-yang symbol depicts the most perfect representation of the balance between yang and yin, white and black, warm and cold, light and darkness, Heaven and Earth. As Heaven is always “above” Earth, yang always prevails over yin as on the above drawing.
Put into parallel with cardinal points, yang can only stand “above” and be associated with light, i.e. to South or East. Similarly, yin, standing “below”, is necessarily related to darkness, i.e. to North or West. Indeed, the Chinese tradition mostly favours the solar orientation where the being is facing South and gives preference to the left or East. That is why, the ancient Chinese cartographic representations are generally, but not always, putting South at the “top” and North at the “bottom” unlike our own representations.