Bat

Good fortune, read through a pun. In Chinese the word for bat sounds like the word for blessing, which is why bats appear as a decorative motif on furniture and ceramics rather than as omens of dread. Five bats together mean the five blessings.

In the traditional vocabulary it is not read as a warning. Good fortune, read through a pun. The animal is treated as a description of a situation — usually involving timing or a person — not as a prediction. The bat is the strongest evidence in this database that a symbol's meaning can come entirely from how the word sounds, with no contribution from the animal itself.

Traditional readings are almost wholly favourable and rest on the sound-association rather than on the animal's habits — a clear case where language built the symbol. It is grouped under Water (水) in the five-element system.