@SR: I thought I'd put my thoughts here instead of being snarky-
People always present dragons as if they appear in every single culture's mythology, and they simply don't.
First of all, Asian dragons, are nothing at all like European dragons. Asian dragons tend to be serpentine, intelligent, benevolent, have fur, antlers, etc. They are, if you'll excuse the pun, completely different beasts to European dragons-those tended to be big stupid winged lizards that breathed fire and ate people.
Second, just because something appeared in fiction doesn't mean it was real. For example, just because the Greeks had stories about Pan and the Japanese had stories about
this guy doesn't mean there were really goat people.