Modern Needlecraft
Monday, September 26th, 2011
A Night of Romance: The Qi Xi Festival
The Chinese celebrate a variety of festivals each year, including ones that have its origins in a simple fairytale. In China, Valentine’s Day is celebrated twice a year. The Chinese Valentine’s Day, known popularly as the Qi Xi Festival (translated into Night of Sevens) is a celebration in which Chinese girls traditionally demonstrate their domestic skills, hoping to find a good husband.
Falling on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the Chinese calendar, the Qi Xi Festival is also known as the Magpie Festival. As the stars Altaire and Vega are seen high in the sky in the late summer, this festival is held during this time of the year to honour an ancient Chinese fairytale. In the most popular variation of the story, Zhinu, the daughter of the Goddess, escapes heaven to look for some fun because she finds Heaven too boring. On Earth, she meets Niulang, a young cowherd. They soon fall in love, get married and have two children. The Goddess finds out about her daughter’s marriage to a mortal and demands that she return to Heaven and take on her task of weaving colourful clouds. Niulang, upset about his wife’s disappearance, comes across an ox who tells him if that if he kills it and wears his hide, he will be able to go to Heaven along with his two children, which Niulang does. The Goddess, in anger, scratches a river, forming the Milky Way between Altair and Vega, to separate Zhinu and Niulang and the two are forced to live on either side of the river. However, once a year, a flock of magpies who take pity on them form a bridge on the seventh night of the seventh moon so that they can spend one night together.
Traditional celebrations included young Chinese girls pleading with the “Weaver Girl” to give them excellent working hands and needlecraft skills, thus giving the festival another name, The Festival to Plead for Skills. Various customs were practiced that eventually revealed if the devotees had been blessed by the Weaver Girl. Modern celebrations are similar to the normal Valentine’s Day celebrations and young couples give each other presents and flowers and go out on romantic dates. Families have get-togethers and some villages organize community events, such as match-making events.
Tourists who wish to witness this fun-filled festival will find comfortable accommodation in any Beijing Hotel .For those who wish to be a part of the celebration, any five star hotel Beijing has to offer will act as a romantic backdrop for celebrating this festival. The Grand Millennium Hotel Beijing is an excellent choice for tourists who wish to be a part of the festival and for couples who wants to celebrate in luxury and style.
About the Author
Pushpitha Wijesinghe is an experienced independent freelance writer. He specializes in providing a wide variety of content and articles related to the travel hospitality industry.
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