A lot has been written about the philosophies of China (Taoism and Confucianism) but I have never seen much attention paid to the gods and goddesses of the Chinese pantheon. Were they conceived as entities to whom sacrifices or prayers were due, or were they just a cosmological backstory to explain "how we (Chinese) got here". Off the top of my head I can name divinities from Japan to Ireland to Mesoamerica, but had to go to Wikipedia to find a list of Chinese deities, none of whom I recognized.