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The ancient Chinese astronomers called the five major planets by the names of the Five Elements. Venus is Metal (gold); Jupiter is Wood; Mercury is Water; Mars is Fire; Saturn is Earth. The position of the five planets, the sun, the moon and comets in the sky and the Chinese zodiac sign at the time a person was born determine the destiny of a person's life according to the Chinese astrology. A laborious system of computing one's fate and destiny based on one birthday and birth hours (known as 紫微斗數) is still used regularly in modern day Chinese astrology. The twenty-eight Chinese constellations "[xiu4]" (宿) are quite different from the eighty-eight Western constellations. For example, the big dipper ( Ursa Major) is known as (斗) [dou3]; the belt of Orion is known as (參) [shen], or the "Happiness, Fortune, Longevity" trio of demigods. The seven northern constellations are referred to as [xUan2wu3] (北方玄武). Xuan Wu is also known as the spirit of the northern sky or the spirit of Water in Taoism belief.
In addition to astrological readings of the heavenly bodies, the stars in the sky form the basis of many fairy tales. For example, the Summer TriangleThe Summer Triangle is an astronomical asterism involving an imaginary triangle drawn on the northern hemisphere's celestial sphere, with its defining vertices at Altair, Deneb, and Vega. This triangle connects the constellations of Aquila, Cygnus, and Ly is the trio of the cowherd ( AltairAltair (α Aquilae) is a star in the Aquila constellation. It is a white star of visual magnitude 0. 77, the twelfth brightest star in the skies. It is a vertex of the Summer Triangle. Located 17 light years away from Earth, it is one of the closest), the spinster maid fairy ( VegaThis article is about Vega, the star. For other uses: see Vega (disambiguation Vega Alpha Lyrae is the lead star in the constellation Lyra, reaching near directly overhead in the mid-northern latitudes, during the Northern Hemisphere summer. It is a "near) and the "tai bai" fairy ( DenebDeneb (also known as Alpha Cygni is the brightest star in the Cygnus constellation despite being at least thirty times more distant than the others. It is or has been known by a number of other names, including Arided Aridif HR 7924 and HD 197345 . At an). The two forbidden lovers were separated by the silvery river (the Milky WayThis article is about the galaxy called the Milky Way. For the candy bar of the same name, see Milky Way candy bar. The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea in turn derived from the Greek Galaxia gala, galactos means "milk")) is a hazy band of). Each year on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese calendar, the birds form a bridge across the Milky Way. The cowherd carries their two sons (the two stars on each side of AltairAltair (α Aquilae) is a star in the Aquila constellation. It is a white star of visual magnitude 0. 77, the twelfth brightest star in the skies. It is a vertex of the Summer Triangle. Located 17 light years away from Earth, it is one of the closest) across the bridge to reunite with their fairy mother. The tai bai fairy acts as the chaperone of these two immortal lovers. See Qi Qiao Jie for more versions of this story.