Wednesday, May 23, 2012

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A dragon is a legendary creature. All legendary stories about Chinese dragons are from the sky, which means heaven in China. The image of dragon is blurred, misty, mystic, occulted, noble and untouchable. For China, it is the symbol of power from heaven. The Chinese emperor was considered the son of heaven. An emperor has the authority to send command to Dragons. One Chinese story mentioned an emperor killed a dragon in his dream. After 581 AD, Chinese emperors began to wear imperial robes with dragon symbols. During the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), the dragon can be seen everywhere on the roofs, doors, pillars, bridges, utensils in the forbidden city. The most powerful dragon is the five-clawed dragon. It appears only on the yellow imperial robe. Because of this, Dragon is one of most auspicious animals in China.
They say that Dragon has nine sons. People didn't know too much about the Nine Dragons until Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). However, there is more than one version of the Nine Dragons story. One story is the following.
The Dragon sent its nine sons to help the first emperor of Ming Dynasty to conquer China. After completing the mission, nine dragons were preparing their journey to return to heaven. But the emperor wanted them to continue to help the Ming Dynasty. The nine dragons wouldn't stay and the emperor couldn't stop them. However, the emperor decided to play a trick on the most powerful dragon, the 6th son. He tricked the sixth dragon son to carry a magic stele with a carved inscription, which could suppress any ghost, spirit or evil creature. The 6th dragon couldn't move under the magic stele, and all of his other brothers wouldn't leave without him. However, they wouldn't work for the emperor anymore. They decided to no longer show their dragon identities and turned themselves into evil creatures. Since then, the nine dragons have stayed in China.


The Year of the Dragon holds special importance for the Chinese as it is considered to be the luckiest of Chinese years which brings happiness and success.
According to Chinese culture, the dragon is the most auspicious and powerful animal in the Chinese zodiac which is also associated with prosperity.

And since this lunar year is the year of water dragon - occurring only in 60 years - it is considered even more auspicious to the Chinese.
 The dragon year will possibly bring a slight boom to the housing market in China. Many people who subscribe to the Chinese zodiac are expected to wed this year and purchase a house.
Tens of thousands of couples are preparing to marry under what is considered an auspicious sign. To win over a bride in a country undersupplied with women, it helps a lot if the aspiring groom first proves his worth by buying a home.