Qixi Festival - Chinese Valentine's Day

Time: July 7th according to Chinese Lunar Calendar
Qixi Festival is a romantic festival known as the most famous Chinese Valentine's Day. It originated from the Han Dynasty and was formerly known as Qiqiao Festival. In the past, girls are the major participants of the festival and at the night of the day, girls are asking for light hand, weaving exquisite handicrafts. Also on Qixi Festival, people usually hold activities to pray for good wishes and happiness.

Legend of Qixi - Cowherd & Weaver Girl
In ancient China, there is a beautiful but a very painful love story. The protagonists are Niulang and Zhinü. Niulang is a young cowherd lived with an old cow and Zhinü is the seventh daughter of goddess. Someday, Zhinü secretly run to the earth for fun and fell in love with Niulang. They got married without the approval of the goddess but lived very happily with two sons. However, one day, the goddess found out her daughter came to midgard and married with a mortal, she was so angry that ordered the heaven troop to catch Zhinü back. Since then, Niulang had to be separated from his wife.

Niulang was very sad. At that moment, the amazing thing happened: his old cow began to talk and told him that the only way to go to the heaven to meet his wife was to kill the cow and put on its hide. With great sadness, he killed the cow and together with his two sons, he did what the old cow told him.

Once heard that, the goddess took out her hairpin without any doubt and scratched a wide river to separate the two lovers in the sky, which was called the Milky Way between Altair and Vega in modern period. From then on, Zhinü and Niulang could only stand on one side of the river and weaved sadly to each other. The magpies take pity on them for true love, so on the day of July 7th every year, the magpies would fly together to form a bridge for the two lovers meet each other for a single night.

For the romantic story, Qixi Festival is also celebrated as Chinese Valentine's Day.