Chinese Valentine’s Day–Qixi Festival

Qixi Festival, also known as Qiqiao Festival, Qijie Festival, Girl’s Day, Qiqiao Festival, Qinianghui, Qixi Festival, Niu Gongniu Po ​​Day, Qiao Xi, etc., is a traditional Chinese folk festival. The Qixi Festival is derived from the worship of stars. It is the birthday of Seven Sisters in the traditional sense. Because the worship of “Seven Sisters” is held on the seventh night of July, it is named “Qixi”. It is the traditional custom of Qixi Festival to worship Qisi, pray for blessings, make wishes, beg for skill, sit and watch the Altair Vega, pray for marriage, and store water for Qixi Festival. Through historical development, Qixi Festival has been endowed with the beautiful love legend of “Cowherd and Weaver Girl”, making it a festival symbolizing love, and thus is considered to be the most romantic traditional festival in China. In contemporary times, it has produced “Chinese Valentine’s Day”. Cultural meaning.
The Qixi Festival is not only a festival of worshipping the Seven Sisters, but also a festival of love. It is a comprehensive festival with the theme of “Cowherd and Weaver Girl” folklore, praying for blessings, begging for cleverness, and love, with women as the main body. The “Cowherd and Weaver Girl” of Tanabata comes from people’s worship of natural celestial phenomena. In ancient times, people corresponded to astronomical star areas and geographic regions. This correspondence is called “split stars” in terms of astronomy, and “split stars” in terms of geography. Divide”. According to legend, the Cowherd and Weaver Girl will meet on the magpie bridge in the sky on the seventh day of every July.
The Qixi Festival began in ancient times, popularized in the Western Han Dynasty, and flourished in the Song Dynasty. In ancient times, the Qixi Festival was an exclusive festival for pretty girls. Among the many folk customs of Qixi Festival, some have gradually disappeared, but a considerable part has been continued by people. The Qixi Festival originated in China, and some Asian countries influenced by Chinese culture, such as Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Vietnam, also have a tradition of celebrating the Qixi Festival. On May 20, 2006, the Qixi Festival was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list by the State Council of the People’s Republic of China.