Quizzing Qixi: The True Meaning of "Chinese Valentine's Day"
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This Wednesday is Chinese Valentine's Day (also known as Qixi Festival 七夕节 qīxì jié), or as we are told. My first reaction to this was skeptical: another fake corporate greedfest dreamed up by vendors
of chocolates and roses, another excuse to pile the guilt on busy and
preoccupied partners. ("You mean you haven't got me a present for Qixi?"
"I didn't even know it existed until I started writing about it." And
so on.)
However
it is in origin an ancient festival dating back to the Han dynasty, and
the story which lies behind it is one of China's Four Great Folktales.
It has the blend of oddity and charm characteristic of Chinese folklore.
Zhinu,
whose name literally means Weaver Girl, was the seventh daughter of the
Goddess and lived in heaven, where it was her job to weave the clouds.
However she found this a boring task, and one day she escaped from
heaven and fled to earth.
While she was sitting by a river, she was discovered by a young cowherd, whose name was Niulang (which
means cowherd – the Chinese are great believers in nominative
determinism.) The two, of course, fell in love. They married and had two
children.
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Meanwhile,
heaven was in an uproar as everyone searched for the missing weaver
girl. When her mother found her living with a mortal, she was furious
and dragged her back to heaven.
Niulang
was naturally devastated at the loss of his beloved wife. Then, one
night, his ox began to talk to him, disclosing that if he wanted to
ascend to heaven, he needed to kill the ox and put on its skin. (What
the ox's motivation was here is not recorded.)
Niulang
took his two children and set off for heaven clad in the magic oxhide.
The Goddess saw him coming though, and scratched a river in the sky with
her hairpin to keep the lovers apart.
And they can all be seen in the night sky to this day: Zhinu as the star Vega, Niulang, and his children as Altair and two smaller stars either side of it. The river in heaven separating them is the Milky Way.
However,
the story has a happy ending of sorts. Once a year, on the seventh day
of the seventh lunar month, all the magpies in the world fly up to
heaven and form a bridge so that they can meet. There, didn't see that
coming, did you?
The
Qixi (Seven Sunset) festival is celebrated not only in China, but also
in Japan and Korea. Traditional merrymaking includes girls competing to
thread needles in low light (how the long summer evenings must have
flown by...)
Now,
of course, it's all about roses and chocolates and piling guilt on busy
and preoccupied partners. We say, enough of this commercialism, let's
return to the true meaning of the festival. Come on, ladies! Needles
out...
This article originally appeared on our sister publication beijingkids.
Photo: Shizhao
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