The Chinese dragon is depicted as a long, scaled, snake-like dragon with five claws. The Chinese dragon is a symbol of auspicious power in Chinese folklore and art.
 

Chinese dragon
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Traditional Chinese 龍
Simplified Chinese 龙
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs. In contrast to European dragons that are considered evil, Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, and floods. In yin and yang terminology, a dragon is yang (male) and complements a yin (female) fenghuang "Chinese phoenix".
 

Nobody really knows where the dragon comes from. The dragon looks like a combination of many animals. For the Chinese people, Dragons were described visually as a composite of parts from nine animals: The horns of a deer; the head of a camel; the eyes of a devil; the neck of a snake; the abdomen of a large cockle; the scales of a carp; the claws of an eagle; the paws of a tiger; and the ears of an ox.

Chinese emperors think they are the real dragons and the sons of heaven.
In ancient China nobody had any doubts about the existence of dragons. People showed great respect for any dragon depicted in pictures, carvings and writings, and as a result the dragon became the symbol of Chinese nation.

Chinese dragon

Dragon is regarded as a symbol of the Chinese nation and can be found everywhere in Chinese culture including literature, paintings, architecture, furniture, clothes,
Chinese Story on dragons
During the period of South-North Dynasties (420-589A.D.), there was a famous painter Zhang Seng-yao. He was asked to paint dragons for the An-le Temple of Jinling City. He painted four dragons on the wall but did not paint their eyes. He said if he painted the eyes they would fly away. People regarded what he said absurd and deliberately asked him to paint the eyes. So he painted eyes for two of the dragons. After a while, clouds and thunder broke the wall and the two dragons flew up to sky riding clouds. The other two dragons without eyes are still left.

Many Chinese people often use the term "Descendants of the Dragon"  as a sign of ethnic identity, as part of a trend started in the 1970s when different Asian nationalities were looking for animal symbols for representations. The wolf was used among the Mongols, the monkey among Tibetans.

In Chinese culture today, it is mostly used for decorative purposes. It is a taboo to disfigure a depiction of a dragon; for example, an advertisement campaign commissioned by Nike, which featured the American basketball player LeBron James slaying a dragon (as well as beating up an old Kung Fu master), was immediately banned by the Chinese government after public outcry over disrespect.

In Chinese daily language, excellent and outstanding people are compared to the dragon while incapable people with no achievements are compared with other, disesteemed creatures, such as the worm. A number of Chinese proverbs and idioms feature references to the dragon, for example: "Hoping one's son will become a dragon" (望子成龍, i.e. be as successful and powerful as a dragon).

The dragon is sometimes used in the West as a national emblem of China. However, this usage within both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan as the symbol of nation is not common. Instead, it is generally used as the symbol of culture.The dragon is also a symbol of power and strength.

Historically, the dragon was the symbol of the Emperor of China. In the Zhou Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to the Son of Heaven, the 4-clawed dragon to the Zhuhou (seigneur), and the 3-clawed dragon to the Daifu. In the Qing Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to represent the Emperor while the 4-clawed and 3-clawed dragons were assigned to the commoners. The dragon in the Qing Dynasty appeared on national flags.

In European-influenced cultures, the dragon has aggressive, warlike connotations and it's conjectured that the Chinese government wishes to avoid using it as a symbol, but most Chinese disagree with this decision. Westerners only sometimes confuse the disposition of the benevolent Chinese dragon with the aggressive Western dragon. In Hong Kong, the dragon is part of the design of Brand Hong Kong, a symbol used to promote Hong Kong as an international brand name.

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