Chinese Valentine’s day or Qixi festival
Qixi Festival (Chinese: 七夕节; literally “The Night of Sevens”), also known as Magpie Festival, falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month on the Chinese calendar; thus its name. It inspired Tanabata (七夕) in Japan, Chilseok (칠석) in Korea, and Thất Tịch in Vietnam. It has sometimes been called Chinese Valentine’s Day (Chinese: 情人节; pinyin: Qíng rén jié) since the late 1990s.
Girls traditionally demonstrate their domestic arts, especially melon carving, on this day and make wishes for a good husband. It is also known by the following names:
* The Festival to Plead for Skills
* The Seventh Sister’s Birthday, especially in Cantonese, (Chinese: 七姊誕; Mandarin Pinyin: qī zǐ dàn; Jyutping: cat1 zi2 daan3)
* The Night of Skills (Chinese: 巧夕; pinyin: qiǎo xī)
In 2012, this festival falls on August 23.
| The legend of Cowherd and weaving girl | |
| Qi1Xi4 origin story | |
In late summer, the stars Altair and Vega are high in the night sky, and the Chinese tell the following love story, of which there are many variations:
A young cowherd, hence Niulang (Chinese: 牛郎; pinyin: niú láng; literally “[the] cowherd”), came across a beautiful girl–Zhinü (Chinese: 織女; pinyin: zhī nǚ; literally “[the] weavergirl”), the seventh daughter of the Goddess, who just had escaped from boring heaven to look for fun. Zhinü soon fell in love with Niulang, and they got married without the knowledge of the Goddess. Zhinü proved to be a wonderful wife, and Niulang to be a good husband. They lived happily and had two children.
But the Goddess of Heaven (or in some versions, Zhinü’s mother) found out that Zhinü, a fairy girl, had married a mere mortal. The Goddess was furious and ordered Zhinü to return to heaven. (Alternatively, the Goddess forced the fairy back to her former duty of weaving colorful clouds, a task she neglected while living on earth with a mortal.)
On Earth, Niulang was very upset that his wife had disappeared. Suddenly, his ox began to talk, telling him that if he killed it and put on its hide, he would be able to go up to Heaven to find his wife.
Crying bitterly, he killed the ox, put on the skin, and carried his two beloved children off to Heaven to find Zhinü. The Goddess discovered this and was very angry. Taking out her hairpin, the Goddess scratched a wide river in the sky to separate the two lovers forever, thus forming the Milky Way between Altair and Vega.
Zhinü must sit forever on one side of the river, sadly weaving on her loom, while Niulang watches her from afar while taking care of their two children (his flanking stars β and γ Aquilae or by their Chinese names Hè Gu 1 and Hè Gu 3).
But once a year all the magpies in the world would take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge (鵲橋, “the bridge of magpies”, Que Qiao) over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, which is the seventh night of the seventh moon.
Continue reading this article at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qixi_Festival
Is Qixi Festival more than a Chinese Valentine’s Day?
Experts debate
Feng Jincai, president of Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society, certainly doesn’t think Qixi should be considered a Chinese Valentine’s Day.
“Niulang and Zhinv are a married couple and had children, Qixi Festival conveys messages of devoted loyal love between married couples who want to grow old together. It’s different from the love of unmarried people,” he argues.
On the other hand, Liu Zhiwen, head of Folklore Society of Guangdong, thinks Qixi Festival should be seen more holistically, and considered as one of three Chinese Valentine’s Days along with The Lantern Festival and Shangsi Ri (上巳日), the third day of March in the lunar calendar.
“Qixi Festival is born to be a lovers’ festival. During this day, the girls pray to find ideal husbands and married couples pray to have a good life,” he explains. It might not be a fit for all couples, but Liu argues it has the same basis of Valentine’s Day: love.
In a Chinese collection of poetry known as Shijing (诗经, “Book of Songs”), which dates back to 2,000 years ago, Liu explains that there were records of love poetry regarding the Qixi Festival. The poems are about love, not marriage. From this basis, Liu believes that the festival merely requires two people in love to celebrate.
Qixi Festival’s current status
Even though the experts differ on their opinions on the true meaning of Qixi Festival, they agree on one thing: it’s important to protect traditional Chinese festivals and to restore the traditions behind the festivals. This might mean avoiding commercialization.
Although Qixi Festival has regained popularity in recent years, it has struggled to compete with Western Valentine’s Day. Many young people choose to celebrate Western Valentine’s Day over Qixi Festival — during Qixi young girls traditionally demonstrate their domestic arts, and wish for a good husband during the festival — or at least merge the two.
“I’d prefer Western Valentine’s day rather than Qixi Festival,” says Fang Weinan, a local Shanghainese girl. “Qixi Festival has nothing to do with lovers, the background story is about a married couple. Also the promotion of this festival is getting too commercialized now. In ancient times, there is a whole set of rituals to celebrate this day, but nowadays the way it’s celebrated has lost the traditions and is not much different from Western Valentine’s Day.”
Read more: Is Qixi Festival more than a Chinese Valentine’s Day? click: http://www.cnngo.com/shanghai/life/qixi-festival-really-chinese-valentines-day-421609
Quotes of Valentine’s day:
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.
A. A. Milne
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
Judy Garland
Where there is great love, there are always wishes.
Willa Cather
Love is a game that two can play and both win.
Eva Gabor
Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valery
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
Michel de Montaigne
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.
W. H. Auden
Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.
Ben Hecht
We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
Lucretius
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.
Henry Drummond
Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.
John Lennon
Come live in my heart, and pay no rent.
Samuel Lover
If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.
Maya Angelou
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
Ingrid Bergman
When love is not madness, it is not love.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca
A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.
Frank Morgan
Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.
James Thurber
Where there is love there is life.
Mohandas Gandhi
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.
Zelda Fitzgerald
The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.
Margaret Atwood
Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.
Andre Breton
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Zora Neale Hurston
Love is metaphysical gravity.
R. Buckminster Fuller
Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
Victor Hugo
More:See the complete Valentine’s day list at:http://www.brainyquote.com/specials/valentines_day/valentines_day_quotes.html