Chinese Gods

Chinese gods are the beliefs of most of Chinese people. The beliefs are so intertwined with language and culture even they have no independent existence.

Some of Chinese gods and goddesses are representations of the weather or natural forces like the sun or the moon or the rain. For instance, the goddess Ba, the daughter of Heaven, is a personification of drought (she's the human form of drought). Yu-huang is a sky god, and Fei Lian and Feng Po Po are wind gods. Lei-Kung and Lei-zi are the gods of thunder and lightning. Ch'ang O is the moon Chinese goddess. Gong gong is the god of disastrous floods. Han is the god of the Han River - there were many such minor gods, each responsible for a particular river or mountain. Hou Ji is the god of millet, an important food in northern China.

Sometimes people made abstract ideas into ancient Chinese gods, like Cai-shen, the god of prosperity, who you could pray to for success in business, for instance. Fan-kui is the god of butchers, and Sun-pi is the god of cobblers (shoe-makers). Fu-xing is the god of happiness, and Gong De Tian is the goddess of luck. Wei-tuo is the god of teaching.

Sometimes people make the invisible gods into the visible items to pray for the happiness, such as the Chinese New Year calendar, Chinese lunar calendars and so on.