{"id":19613,"date":"2020-02-11T22:03:17","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T22:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19613"},"modified":"2020-02-13T00:53:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T00:53:02","slug":"how-china-does-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-china-does-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"How China does Valentine’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wei Li<\/a>, Frostburg State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Americans celebrate love on Feb. 14, Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a> \u2014 a holiday named for Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman clergyman who secretly performed weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry under Emperor Claudius II.<\/p>\n

But other countries honor romance on different days with their own legends.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Qixi, which occurs on the seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese calendar \u2013 early August on the Western calendar \u2013 is a couples\u2019 holiday based on the Chinese folktale<\/a> about two star-crossed lovers: \u201cNiulang,\u201d or Cattleman, and \u201cZhin\u00fc,\u201d the Weaver Lady.<\/p>\n

Bridge to love<\/h2>\n

In Chinese myth, Cattleman was a handsome young mortal who once healed a dying ox. In return for saving his life, the ox helped Cattleman find a wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt dusk seven goddesses will come down from heaven to bathe in the nearby lake,\u201d he told Cattleman, according to legend<\/a>, adding that the youngest, Zhin\u00fc, was the prettiest. The two met, fell in love and decided to get married.<\/p>\n

The goddess was a weaver fairy and the youngest daughter of the almighty goddess of heaven. Her mother, furious that her daughter had married a mere man, sent her celestial soldiers to return Weaver Lady to heaven.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Model and actress Lin Chi-ling as the Weaver Lady at a 2019 Qixi Festival gala broadcast on national TV.<\/span>
\nVisual China Group via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The grateful old ox, now on death\u2019s door, told Cattleman to put on his skin after he died. Upon doing so, Cattleman discovered he could fly to heaven to retrieve his wife.<\/p>\n

However, just before he reached Weaver Lady, the goddess of heaven threw her silver hairpin toward Cattleman, creating a swirling river that separated the young couple. This river became the Milky Way, or yinhe \u2013 the \u201cSilver River\u201d \u2013 in Chinese.<\/p>\n

Cattleman and Weaver Lady\u2019s story moved all the magpies on Earth, according to the Qixi legend. They flew up to heaven to bridge the Silver River. Relenting, the goddess of heaven allowed the young lovers to meet on the Magpie Bridge \u2013 but only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. Qixi means \u201cseventh day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, Cattleman and the Weaver Lady turned into stars, which in English are called Altair and Vega. They twinkle in the night sky as eternal symbols of romantic love.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Milky Way, or \u2018Silver River\u2019 in Chinese, divides Vega, on the right, from Altair, on the lower left.<\/span>
\nUniversal Images Group via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Qixi traditions<\/h2>\n

In olden times Chinese women celebrated Qixi with weaving, embroidering and paper-cutting. In one popular dexterity contest, ladies competed to thread a bronze needle with seven holes on it under moonlight<\/a>. Young women would also pray to Vega for a good husband<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today China\u2019s Qixi festival is more of a commercial affair, like American Valentine\u2019s Day. Couples go on dates, declare their love and exchange gifts like flowers, perfume or jewelry.<\/p>\n

While researching international marriages in China<\/a>, I\u2019ve learned the legend of Qixi also lives on in curious ways.<\/p>\n

China, with its surplus of young bachelors, has a major industry of online marriage brokers<\/a>. Some of these businesses are called \u201cmagpie bridges,\u201d because they bring lovers together \u2013 alas, not gods, but mere mortals.<\/p>\n

[Like what you\u2019ve read? Want more?<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s daily newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Wei Li<\/a>, Associate Professor of Sociology, Frostburg State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wei Li, Frostburg State University Americans celebrate love on Feb. 14, Valentine\u2019s Day \u2014 a holiday named for Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman clergyman who secretly performed weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry under Emperor Claudius II. But other countries honor romance on different days with their own legends. China\u2019s Qixi, which occurs on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2450],"tags":[145,3720,4491,388,459,7655,6610,1609,1935],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19613"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19626,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19613\/revisions\/19626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}