Qixi Festival – Chinese Valentine’s Day

Another traditional Chinese festival is around the corner – the Qixi festival, also called Qiqiao festival. It is on July 7th of lunar calendar, and should be August 17th in this year. In China, Qixi festival is known as Chinese Valentine ’s Day. This is a day to celebrate love.

Tale about Qixi festival

This festival was originated from one of the Four Tales in China, the love story between cowboy and weaver. It is said that long time ago, an honest and tolerant man lived in Niujiazhuang in the city of Nanyang. He was from a poor family and his parents had left him forever, so he lived with his brother and sister in law. His sister in law was quite a mean lady, and abused him very often. One day, his sister-in-law asked him to take care of all the cows with a total number of nine, but ordered him to come back with ten cows. When the cows were eating in the prairie, he was very sad there alone, as he couldn’t get an extra cow, then how could he come back home? An old man came to him, and told him that he can find a wounded cow in another mountain, where is hundreds of miles away. This cowboy walked hundreds of miles and finally found the wounded cow. He took very care of the wounded cow. One month later the cow recovered and came back home with the cowboy. Also the cowboy got to know that actually this cow was an immortal creature from heaven, and was punished to human being’s world due to some mistakes he made.

After the cowboy went back home, his sister-in-law continued to abuse him, and even kick him out. So the poor cowboy moved out with his best friend, the old cow.

One day, fairy ladies including weaver came to human being’s world and took bath in the river. With the help of old cow, cowboy met the weaver, and they fall in love with each other. The cowboy and the weaver got married and had happy life. Three years later, they had one daughter and one son. It is said that one year in human being’s world is one day in the heaven. After weaver lived three years in human being’s world, which was three days in the heaven, the empress of heaven found out what she did, and was furious. The empress came to the world and brought back weaver by force. The cowboy was very sad to see his wife been taken away. At this time, the old cow told the cowboy that he is going to die, after his death the cowboy can use his skin as a vehicle to fly and chase the weaver. Then the old cow died. The cowboy took his skin and chased after the weaver. After a while, the cowboy found the empress and the weaver, when he was nearly catch them, the empress plucked her hairpin and scribed a Milky Way between the cowboy and weaver. The cowboy cannot across the Milky Way, and this couple had to look at each other on each side of the Milky Way. The sparrows were moved by their love, they flied above the Milky Way and formed a bridge so that this couple can accross the bridge and get reunion. Cannot stop the love, finally the empress agreed that this couple can meet once on 7th July every year. Therefore, every 7th July of lunar calendar, people would like to look up to the sky to find the Cowboy star and Weaver star, and pray for true love. This is the story about Qixi festival, the Chinese Valentine ’s Day.

Wish everyone find true love, and have good time on Qixi festival.