1. What do Chinese dragons look like? 

The Chinese Dragon, we call it "Long" in Chinese, is a special creature. Somebody said that dragons are one kind of the animals which were created according to the forms of cloud and the sound of thunder. It has the head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit or demon , scales of a carp, paws of a tiger, and claws of an eagle. Besides, it has whiskers, a bright jewel under its chin, which enables it to fly to Heaven. This is a general description of Chinese dragons. The breath of the Dragon changes into either rain or fire. It is able to expand or contract its body, and in addition it has the power of transformation and invisibility. 

The ancient Chinese Emperor Yao was said to be the son of a dragon (note1), and many rulers in Chinese were metaphorically referred to as the representative of dragons." And Chinese people often use dragon image. For instance, Chinese use dragons in temple construction decoration. On holidays, there are dragon dance performances. It's believed that the dragon governs the water in the folklore,  incurs the cloud to rain, and also can surrender the evil.   

(note1): Chinese people believe that dragons are male and their couples, phoenixes, are female. So the wife of the Chinese emperor is the representative of phoenixes.

Here is the picture of Chinese dragon, which explains what animals its body look like.  

    Though most Chinese dragons share the similar body features, they still have different colors or different body shapes (e.g.: horns) based on their types and their ages. Here we have some pictures of different Chinese dragons.

 The types of  Chinese dragons

According to Chinese legends, there are many kinds of dragons in Chinese. And they all have different kinds of powers and live in different places. Among them, there are several famous Chinese dragons:

1. The Celestial Dragon (Tien-lung)

The Celestial Dragon protects the places of the Gods and it is the ruler of dragons. It protects the heavens, where the gods live. Only the Celestial Dragon have 5 claws. All other dragons have only 3 or 4.

2. The Spiritual Dragon (Shen-Lung)

The Spiritual Dragon controls the wind and the rain. It always float across the sky, blue in color. The Chinese had to carefully appease and worship the Spiritual Dragon, because if the Spiritual Dragon was angry or neglectful, disasters would come to the earth.

3. The Earth Dragon (Di-Lung)

The Earth Dragon controls rivers, and water on the Earth. It controls the flow and maintains the river banks. Every river in China had it's own local dragon king. And they rule the waters from a palace far below the surface.

4. The Underworld Dragon (Fut's Lung)

The Underworld Dragon guards precious metals and gems buried in the earth. Each of these dragons bear an big magic pearl that can multiply whatever it touched, and the pearl represent "wisdom."

 What's more......
    In Chinese palace or the Chinese- style memorials, sometimes we can see dragon-head scuppers on the foot of the walls. This is because people believe dragons control water and they hope the dragon-head scuppers can help their drainage system work better. So nowadays, faucets, in Chinese, are called "Shui Long Tou" which means "Water Dragon's Head."