the Chinese Valentine’s Day 七夕节

Today, the Chinese lunar calendar is 7th. July. It is the Chinese Valentine’s Day, the Double-Seventh Day, 七夕节 (qī xī jié).

The Double Seventh Festival, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, is a traditional festival full of romance. It often goes into August in the Gregorian calendar.

This festival is in mid-summer when the weather is warm the grass and trees reveal their luxurious greens. At night when the sky is dotted with stars, and people can see the Milky Way spanning from the north to the south. On each bank of it is a bright star, which sees each other from afar. They are the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid, and about them there is a beautiful love story passed down from generation to generation.

Long, long ago, there was an honest and kind-hearted fellow named 牛郎 Niu Lang (Cowher). His parents died when he was a child. Later he was driven out of his home by his sister-in-law. So he lived by himself herding cattle and farming. One day, a fairy from heaven called 织女 Zhi Nu (the Weaver Maid) fell in love with him and came down secretly to earth and married him. The Cowherd farmed in the field and the Weaver Maid wove at home. They lived a happy life and gave birth to a boy and a girl. Unfortunately, the God of Heaven soon found out the fact and ordered the Queen Mother of the Western Heavens to bring the Weaver Maid back.

With the help of celestial cattle, the Cowher flew to heaven with his son and daughter. At the time when he was about to catch up with his wife，the Queen Mother took off one of her gold hairpins and made a stroke. One billowy river appeared in front of the Cowher. The Cowher and the Weaver Maid were separated on the two banks forever and could only feel their tears. Their loyalty to love touched magpies, so tens of thousands of magpies came to build a bridge for the Cowher and the Weaver Maid to meet each other. The Jade Emperor was eventually moved and allowed them to meet each year on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month. Hence their meeting date has been called “Qi Xi” (the Double Seventh).

Legend has it that on this evening，Niulang, or the Cowherd，and Zhinu，or the Weaver Maid, meet each other for their annual tryst on a bridge formed by sympathetic magpies over the Milky Way. If it happens to rain that night, a Chinese elder might say it is Zhinu weeping after meeting her husband Niulang on the Milky Way.

This day used to be commemorated as a festival for girls and also for young people in love. As the story goes, there was once a cowherd, Niulang, who lived with his elder brother and sister-in-law. But his sister-in-law disliked and abused him, and the boy was forced to leave home with only an old cow for company.

The cow, however, was a former god who had violated celestial rules and had been sent to earth in bovine form. One day he led Niulang to a lake where fairies came to bathe on earth; among them was Zhinu, the most beautiful girl and a skilled seamstress. The two fell in love at first sight and were soon married. They had a son and a daughter, and their happy life was held up as an example for hundreds of years in China.

Yet in the eyes of the Jade Emperor, the Supreme Deity in Taoism, marriage between a mortal and a fairy was strictly forbidden. He sent his empress to fetch Zhinu. Niulang grew desperate when he found that Zhinu had been taken back to heaven. Driven by Niulang’s misery, the cow told him to turn its hide into a pair of shoes after it died.

The magic shoes whisked off Niulang, who carried his two children in baskets strung from a shoulder pole, off on a chase after the empress. The pursuit enraged the empress, who took her hairpin and slashed it across the sky, creating the Milky Way which separated the husband from his wife. But all was not lost. An army of magpies, moved by their love and devotion, formed a bridge across the Milky Way to reunite the family. Even the Jade Emperor was touched and allowed Niulang and Zhinu to meet once a year on the seventh night of the seventh month. It is said that at that night, children can hear the private conversations between the Weaver Maid and the Cowherd under the grape trellis. This is how Qixi came to be.

七夕节 qī xī jié (the Chinese Valentine’s Day)
牛郎 niú lánɡ (Cowher)
织女 zhī nǚ (the Weaver Maid)

Dear, who is your 牛郎 or 织女 ? learn Chinese to know more Chinese culture.