Cranes in Chinese mythology

[1]: 86–87 Chinese mythology refers to those myths found in the historical geographic area of China.

[5]: 4 According to some Chinese legends, there are 4 kinds of cranes which differ in colours: white, yellow, blue, and black.

[3] According to some legends, a black crane no longer eats food and only drinks water when it turns 600 years old.

[7] In East Asian culture (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam), the red-crowned crane is a symbol of happiness.

[8] Cranes are one of the symbols of longevity in Chinese culture; as such, they are often depicted together with a pine tree or a stone, or together with a tortoise or a deer.

[1]: 183 In popular prints, a crane is sometimes depicted with the herb of immortality (zhi) in its beak; this is a double symbol of longevity.

[8] In the Ming dynasty, the first class civil official would wear a buzi with a fairy crane (Chinese: 仙鹤; pinyin: xiānhè).

[1]: 86–87 When a crane is depicted with a fenghuang, mandarin duck, heron and a wagtail, this represents the Confucianist concepts of the five relationship between people (五伦).