What is the Qixi Festival and what legends are there about it?
China has left behind many traditional festivals from ancient times to the present, among which the Chinese Valentine's Day is deeply loved by contemporary young people. So what exactly is the Qixi Festival and what legends and stories are there about it? "Er Ya Shi Tian" says: "The seventh month is Xiang, and the eighth month is Zhuang." Therefore, the seventh month of the lunar calendar is also called "Xiang Yue". Come and follow Mr. Shui Mo's website to learn about every day of the seventh lunar month in 2019!What is the Chinese Valentine's Day?The Chinese Valentine's Day is also known as the Qiqiao Festival, Girls' Day, Women's Day, Daughters' Day, Hair Washing Festival, Valentine's Day, Double Star Festival, Double Seventh Festival, Women's Day, etc. Except for the Tang Dynasty which celebrated Liuxi and the Five Dynasties which celebrated July 6 as the Double Seventh Festival, all previous dynasties have celebrated the seventh day of the seventh lunar month as the Double Seventh Festival. It is a festival passed down to commemorate the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.On the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, there is a custom in some places: after a man and a woman get engaged, the woman has to make a pair of insoles for her fiancé. The insoles come in a variety of patterns, including two dragons playing with a pearl, a phoenix playing with a peony, mandarin ducks, a dragon and a phoenix dancing, etc. The colors are bright and eye-catching. It is an embroidery handicraft with quite exquisite craftsmanship. The colored threads carry the girls' infinite lovesickness, the colored threads weave out the girls' gentle and affectionate hearts, and the pairs of insoles embody their good wishes and pure love. In some places, it is customary to weave a bridge with the wheat straw grown that year, and place it on the desk with textiles such as the Cowherd, the Weaver Girl, a boy, a girl, an old cow, and a magpie. Some people cut out the above-mentioned characters and animals with colored paper and stick them on the wall. After praying, take 7 embroidery needles and use colored thread to pierce the holes. If you can thread 7 needles at once, it is considered that you have begged for "cleverness". In some places in the south, people would dry a basin of water in the yard on the Chinese Valentine's Day. After a while, a film will form on the water surface. Use your hand to gently place the embroidery needle in the water. If the needle floats, it is considered "skillful". In some places, after the embroidery needle floats, if you look at its shadow on the bottom of the water, if there are animals, flowers or birds in the shadow, it is said to be "skillful"; if its shadow is as thick as a hammer, as thin as silk, or as straight as a wax shaft, it is said to be "clumsy" and not "skillful". This custom is still widely followed in the south and is deeply loved by young people. What are the legends about Qixi Festival?Wulongkou Folk Legends <br /> In Wulongkou, generations of people have been telling this celestial myth with great interest. On the southeast bank of the Milky Way, there is a beautiful star called Altair. There are two not-so-bright small stars on both sides of Altair called the Children's Stars. A little further away from Altair, there is a brighter star called Altair. The brightest star on the northwest bank of the Milky Way is called Vega, and there is another star called Shuttle Star on its side.Wulongkou folk legend: On the seventh day of the seventh month every year, when the night is quiet, if you stand under the grape trellis or loofah trellis, you can hear the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl whispering on the Magpie Bridge. Now, the Altair, Vega, Niusuotou and Liuzi in the sky were transformed from the gifts given to each other by the Cowherd when he was chasing the Weaver Girl. There are two little stars on the side of Altair, they are the two children of Vega! Folk legends in Xi'an <br /> According to research, in the third year of Emperor Wu of Han's reign (120 BC), in order to conquer the southwestern states, Emperor Wu of Han dug the Kunming Lake for training the navy in Doumen Street Office, Chang'an District, Xi'an today. Stone statues of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were erected on the east and west sides of the lake, facing each other across the lake, which was inspired by the legend that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were separated by the Milky Way, "without words to each other". The wonderful legend about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has since spread widely throughout China. For a long time, local people have been calling the two stone statues "Stone Grandpa" and "Stone Lady". As time goes by, many people now do not know that these two stone statues are the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, who symbolize traditional Chinese loyal love. |
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