BEIJING - Ciel Wu visits the Witch's Shop almost every day, hoping the online astrologer will offer her a hint about when her lucky star will rise.

Wu, a staff member at a real estate company in the east China city of Nanjing, is a typical example of China's young people who leave their fate to the interpretation of star signs.

Wu began to take heed of, and later fancy, star signs in high school.

"You know what? Star signs are really amazing. One week, I got very sick, and I checked back with the star sign website that I usually go to, it said exactly that Leos would face health challenges that week," said Wu.

Wu's trusted Witch's Shop is a very famous blog run by Naonao, who is said to have studied astrology in Britain and is considered an oriental Susan Miller, an astrologer known for her monthly forecasts on her website, AstrologyZone.

For each of the twelve Zodiac star signs, from Aries to Pisces, the Witch's Shop forecast mainly includes three aspects - health, personal finance and career development.

The weekly forecast also lists lucky colors for each star sign and warns people to take precautions to ward off possible risks.

These forecasts are reposted and recommended thousands of times on social media websites in China.

"I don't just check, but I also share and discuss it with my friends on social media websites like microblogs," said Wu.

"If I am among the top three lucky star signs of the week, I will be somewhat more confident than usual at work. If I am in the bottom three, I remind myself to be low key and avoid anything risky," she explained.

MORE THAN A LIFESTYLE

China's major web portals all have special sections for topics related to astrology, including weekly and monthly luck forecasts, personality analyses, and advice for couples and lovers from the perspective of star signs.

On Sina Weibo, China's leading Twitter-like service, the verified accounts related to star signs have all attracted several thousands of followers.

The Witch's Shop brands star signs as a "kind of lifestyle" at the very top of its homepage, but the superstition has obviously extended beyond the personal scope.

An English language training company based in the central Chinese city of Wuhan triggered public outcry after a local newspaper reported last month that the company explicitly rejected Scorpios and Virgos while calling for Capricorns, Pisces and Libras in its job ads.

A manager with the company explained that based on her "research" of star signs and past experiences with employees, Scorpios have a strong sense of self, are moody and can not get along well with others, while Virgos are too picky and usually would not work for the company for a long time, said the report by Chutian Metropolis Daily.

The want ads were seen as professional discrimination and ridiculed as incredibly superstitious by netizens.

Meanwhile, some people have taken their astrological beliefs to the extreme when making important personal decisions.

Li Yao in Jinan, a city in east China's Shandong province, feels pressured by her parents to find Mr. Right, but the "leftover woman - a modern term referring to an unmarried woman in her 30s or older - recently refused a man without hesitation once she learned that he was a Leo.

"I am a Scorpio, which is the least compatible with a Leo," Li said. "Having compatible star signs is the foremost priority in my choosing of boyfriends."

She used Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian, a notorious adulterous couple in the classic novel "The Water Margin," to prove her "theory."

Ximen, a rich and influential local merchant, had an affair with Pan and they murdered Pan's husband, Wu Dalang, after their relationship was discovered. The two were later killed by Wu's vengeful brother.

"As a Leo and a Scorpio, their relationship was doomed and unacceptable," she said.

Actually, the book's author did not specify the couple's birth dates in the novel about a group of 108 outlaws in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). Li, like other star sign adherents, assumed the cursed lovers were a Leo and a Scorpio based solely on descriptions of their personalities and deeds.

Li Yao is what Li Min, an astronomer with Nanjing University in Jiangsu province, might call a "blind believer" in astrology.

The professor agreed that having faith in star signs can be seen as a lifestyle and astrology can offer a kind of psychological comfort similar to that offered by prayer in times of troubles and setbacks.

However, psychological analyses by many experts have indicated that people's characters are not necessarily related to their star signs, he said.

"It's absolutely a personal choice whether or not to believe in star signs, but when blind faith leads to anxiety, then that person will need psychological therapy," he said, adding that some believers feel restless upon receiving an ominous forecast.