What is "wu"

n. (context historic English) A Chinese shaman or shamaness

WU (as an abbreviation) may stand for:

• Weather Underground - a radical group active in the 1970s in the United States of America
  • Weather Underground (weather service)
• Western Union
• Windows Update - a service which updates software on computers running Microsoft operating systems
• Women Unite
• Work unit
• Worms United
• Power Jets WU

Wu (吳), is the region with the core area around Taihu Lake in Jiangnan (the south of the Yangtze River). Wu region is part of the ancient province Yangzhou in southeast of China. The term "Wu" is the name for several kingdoms based in the area.

Wu (; Old Chinese: *) was one of the states during the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. It was also known as Gouwu or Gongwu from the pronunciation of the local language.

Wu was located at the mouth of the Yangtze River east of the State of Chu. Its first capital was at Meili (probably in modern Wuxi) and was later moved to Gusu (within modern Suzhou) and then Helu City (the old town of present-day Suzhou).

Wu is the Pinyin transliteration of the Chinese surname 吳 (Traditional Chinese), 吴 (Simplified Chinese), which is the tenth most common surname in Mainland China. Wu (吳) is the sixth name listed in the Song Dynasty classic Hundred Family Surnames.

The Cantonese and Hakka transliteration of 吳 is Ng, a syllable made entirely of a nasal consonant while the Min Nan transliteration of 吳 is Goh or Ngoh, depending on the regional variations in Min Nan pronunciation. In Korea, the surname is pronounced as "Oh". In Vietnam, the surname is known as "Ngo".

吳 is also one of the most common surnames in Korea. It is spelled 오 in Hangul and romanized O by the three major romanization systems, but more commonly spelled Oh in South Korea. It is also related far back in Chinese history with the name "Zhou (周)" and "Ji (姬)".

Several other, less common Chinese surnames with different pronunciations are also transliterated into English as "Wu": 武, 伍, 仵, 烏, 鄔 and 巫. Wu' (or Woo or Wou) is also the Cantonese transliteration of the different Chinese surname 胡 (see Hu), used in Hong Kong, and by overseas Chinese of Cantonese speaking areas of Guangdong, or Hong Kong origin.

Wu (吳), also referred to as Huainan (淮南), Hongnong (弘農), Southern Wu (南吳), or Yang Wu (楊吳), was one of the Ten Kingdoms in south-central China which was in existence between the years of 907 and 937. Its capital was Jiangdu Municipality (江都) (modern Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province).

Some historians consider Wu to have begun in 902, when Yang Xingmi was named Prince of Wu by the Tang dynasty. All 3 rulers of Wu after 907 (when Tang dynasty collapsed) were Yang Xingmi's sons. The first ruler Yang Wo was murdered by Xu Wen and Zhang Hao, and the other 2 after him were effective puppets dominated by Xu Wen and his adopted son Xu Zhigao, who usurped power in 937 to establish Southern Tang. Yang Pu, the last ruler, was the only one to have claimed the title of emperor, the other rulers were kings or princes.

Wu are spirit mediums who have practiced divination, prayer, sacrifice, rainmaking, and healing in Chinese traditions dating back over 3,000 years.

Wu ( Chinese: 悟) is a concept of awareness, consciousness, or spiritual enlightenment in the Chinese folk religion. According to scholarly studies, many practitioners recently "reverted" to the Chinese traditional religion speak of a "new awareness" (kai wu 开悟 or jue wu 觉悟) of the interconnectedness of reality in terms of the cosmic-moral harmony— ming yun, bao ying, yuan fen. This spiritual awareness works as an engine that moves these themes from being mere ideas to be motivating forces in one's life: awareness of ming yun ignites responsibility towards life; awareness of yuan fen stirs to respond to events rather than resigning. Awareness is a dynamic factor and appears in two guises: a realisation that arrives as a gift, often unbidden; then it evolves into a practice that the person intentionally follows.

In Latin alphabetical transliteration of the Chinese, it's a homograph of the wu-shaman.