The shared core.
All three traditions calculate the same eight characters from your year, month, day, and hour using the heavenly stems and earthly branches. Two characters per pillar, four pillars per chart — that's the eight. The chart itself does not change between traditions. A Korean master and a Chinese master, given the same birth moment, will write down the same stems, branches, and elements.
The walkthrough of how those four pillars get built is in How the Four Pillars work. What follows is what each tradition does with the result.
Saju (사주) — the Korean reading.
Korean masters tend to lead with the day master (일간) and use the rest of the chart to describe how it gets supported, drained, or pushed. The reading is often applied day-to-day: which years suit you, which directions suit you, which partners run compatible elemental ratios.
Personal Essence character work — the ten archetypes Given uses on the home screen — comes out of this Korean lineage. The reading is also frequently paired with name analysis (성명학), and many families still consult a master at the birth of a child or before a marriage. The tone is practical: the chart describes a temperament, and the advice is about how to live with it.
Bazi (팔자) — the Chinese reading.
Bazi literally means "eight characters." The Chinese tradition is older than the Korean one and has a much larger body of scholarly literature behind it. The day master is still central, but more of the weight sits on the luck pillars (대운) — the 10-year fortune cycles that overlay the natal chart and shift its balance over time.
Bazi also takes the classical patterns more seriously: Special Charts like 종격 (a chart that follows a single dominant element) and 화기격 (transformation patterns) get diagnosed and read on their own terms. The vocabulary leans further toward what practitioners call "fate readings" — more deterministic in tone than the Korean everyday-application style.
Four Pillars of Destiny — the English label.
"Four Pillars of Destiny" is the umbrella term most western practitioners use. Sometimes it just means Bazi translated, especially in books written by Chinese masters for an English audience. Sometimes it's a fusion of Chinese and Korean styles, with western psychological framing layered on top.
It's the least standardized of the three labels. Two English-language books titled "Four Pillars of Destiny" can teach noticeably different methods — one heavy on luck pillars, the other heavy on day-master analysis, a third pulling in Myers-Briggs-style overlays. Read the lineage of the author before you trust the method.
Which one Given uses (and why).
Given works from the same core math all three traditions share. The framing leans Korean: the day master is treated as your Personal Essence archetype, and the daily reading runs today's elements against that day master. That's the saju-style emphasis on applied, day-by-day use.
For the longer arc — the strong decades and the quieter ones — Given borrows the Bazi luck-pillar approach. The 10-year cycles tell you when the chart is being supported and when it's being pushed, and that's the right tool for forecasting at that horizon.
The vocabulary is plain English instead of either CJK tradition. You won't see 일간 or 대운 in the app. You'll see "your day master" and "your chapters," because the words have to do work for someone reading on a phone, not someone reading a textbook.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between saju and bazi?
Saju and bazi are the same system read in two languages. Both build four pillars — eight characters — from your birth date and time. Saju (사주) is the Korean reading and bazi (팔자) is the Chinese one. The calculation is identical; what differs is emphasis and voice. Korean saju leans on applied, day-by-day use and a specific lineage (박재완, 이석영, 백영관); Chinese bazi leans scholarly and classical (자평진전, 적천수).
Are saju and bazi the same thing?
The underlying math is the same. Both derive the same heavenly stems and earthly branches from the same birth moment, so a saju chart and a bazi chart for one person are identical. The reading traditions differ in what they stress and how they phrase it, not in the eight characters themselves.
Which does Given use — saju or bazi?
Given works from the shared core math and frames it the Korean saju way: your day master is read as a Personal Essence archetype, and the daily reading runs today's elements against it. For the longer arc it borrows the bazi luck-pillar (대운) approach. The vocabulary stays plain English.