Chinese temple architecture also "wu" and "tongji" shamans, may perform services within these temples. Shenist temples are usually small and decorated with traditional figures on their roofs (dragons and deities), although some evolve into significant structures. Chinese temples can be found throughout Mainland China, Taiwan and also where Chinese expatriate communities settled over centuries. An old name in English for Chinese traditional temples is "joss house". "Joss" is an Anglicized spelling of the Portuguese word for "god", "deus". "Joss house" was in common use in English in western North America during frontier times, when joss houses were a common feature of Chinatowns. The
Incense in China such as "Phyllostachys edulis" (毛竹) may be used, however due to their fiberous surfaces or relatively thin wood producing good bamboo sticks is more difficult. Longer incense stick are produced using cao bamboo(草竹). The dried bamboo poles of around 10 cm in diameter are first manually trimmed to length, soak, peeled, and then continuously split in halves until thin sticks of bamboo with square cross sections of less than 3mm width have been produced. This process has largely been replaced by machines in modern incense production. Chinese incense is made from diverse ingredients with much overlap into the traditional Chinese