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
Chinese gods and immortals "god" and "deity", Latin "genius" (meaning a generative principle, "spirit") and "deus" or "divus"; "dì", sometimes translated as "thearch", implies a manifested or incarnate "godly" power. It is etymologically and figuratively analogous to the concept of "di" as the base of a fruit, which falls and produces other fruits. This analogy is attested in the "Shuowen Jiezi" explaining "deity" as "what faces the base of a melon fruit". The latter term 仙 "xiān" unambiguously means a man who has reached immortality, similarly to the Western idea of "hero". Chinese traditional theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the classic