by T.Yeap

Created on: August 08, 2009

The Chinese beliefs of spirits has been in existence since the religion of Buddhism, Taoism has been created. Those believes weigh heavily on Chinese Culture until today. For example, ceremony, legends, traditions and festivals were mostly based on the believes on spirits. There's "Shen" or known as the Heaven Spirits, Deities,God/Goddess or Demigods. Whereas the opposite side of the spectrum will be "Gui /LingHuen" or known as ghost/spirits.

SPIRITS of GOD

There are many gods/goddesses that Chinese believes in as there's basically one deities for each area of our daily life. The most commonly worshipped gods are:

1) Tian Gong - The Emperor of Heaven. There's a festival to celebrate his birthday usually is during the 9th day of Chinese New Year. This is a very important day for the Fujian ethnic group. There's many do's and don't during this particular day and Chinese people spend days to prepare for the celebration of his birthday and praying he'll protect the family and bringing luck and prosperity throughout the year. People will provide foods and burn insence to pay respect to the emperor.

2) Tu Di Gong - The God of Earth. He protects and rules over the earth, grounds and local places. So, usually the statue will be placed on the ground when you enters Chinese homes where they worship the god.

3) Zao Jun- The Kitchen's God. He's the deities that responsible for the food & beverage and also the daily lifes of the family. Chinese believes that once a year (couple days before the Chinese New Year) that he will go back to heaven and reports all the good and bads of the family to the Emperor. Therefore, the Chinese will provide a couple of sweet sticky rice cake (Nian Gao-) as food offering and hoping he will only reporting about the good but not the bad incidence.

4) Cai Shen - The God of Wealth. He overseas all the wealth and fortune. Many Chinese people believes that he will bring money and wealth to the family but he was mainly worshiped by the merchants who wish to have a good business and future. It's greatly used by the Feng Shui society to help a person bringing in wealth and prosperity.

5) Guan Yin - The God of Mercy and Compassion. She is one of the most popular goddess in Chinese Culture. She is generally believed to be the protector for women and children. She's also widely associated with vegetarianism because she emphasized on not killing among the living world. Although not all people that worship Guan Yin will

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