The story of 七

seven

七 depicts a cross which represent the center of the world. From the knowledge of ancient Chinese, this world was formed by seven bearing, such seven bearings were east, south, west, north, upside, underside and the last bearing was center, so a cross was used to represent the concept of center, since it is the seventh bearing, ancient Chinese also used such symbol to describe the number of seven.. Ancient Chinese respected nature, and also thought that human being was the center of the world, so they placed human being or the bearing of center at last, i.e. the seventh. It can be exemplified by the tradition of Renri(人日), since Renri, literally human day, refers specially to the seventh day of the first month in the Chinese Lunar calendar.