Think of a day that celebrates love and romance and Valentine’s Day springs to mind. But in Chinese culture, it is the tradition-rich Qixi Festival that sends hearts aflutter. Also known as Chinese Valentine’s Day and the Double Seventh Festival, the Qixi Festival is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which this year falls on August 10.
The festival holds deep cultural significance in Chinese folklore. Many couples time their weddings to coincide with the festival, believing that tying the knot during this auspicious time will bring lots of luck. Like Valentine’s Day, the Qixi Festival has become heavily commercialised, with gift-giving the main way people express their love.
Luxury brands are cashing in on consumers’ potential spending power. Marketing campaigns for this year’s Qixi Festival abound, such as Gucci’s featuring actor Zhang Linghe and model He Cong, and one from Bottega Veneta with actress Zhou Yutong, singer Mika Hashizume and model Du Juan that alludes to the love story behind the festival. Balenciaga’s Qixi collection includes T-shirts and hoodies adorned with hearts, while Loewe went all cute with a campaign featuring hedgehogs created using the traditional art of paper-cutting.
While gift-giving is popular during the festival – and a boon for Chinese online retailers – the festival remains an important part of China’s cultural heritage, reflecting the country’s rich history, mythology and traditions. Find out more about that side below. Dating back more than 2,000 years to the Han dynasty (206BC to AD220), the Qixi Festival sprang from the tragic love story between two star-crossed lovers: Zhinu – a weaver and daughter of a goddess – and Niulang, a humble cowherd.
The pair married and had a family, a boy and a girl. But when Zhinu’s mother found out that her daughter had married a mere mortal, she brought her back to heaven, separating the couple by creating a river of stars (the Milky Way). Legend has it that help came from an unlikely source: some magpies.
The birds were so moved by the couples’ tragic love tale that they flew all the way to heaven and helped them by forming a bridge across the river of stars, allowing them to reunite. Zhinu’s mother, also touched by the love story, eventually caved in, permitting the couple to meet once a year on the same day – the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Like most popular legends there are many versions, while the story is one of the four great Chinese folk tales (the others being The Butterfly Lovers , Lady Meng Jiang and Legend of the White Snake ).
Festival offerings include tea, wine, flowers and fruits, with worshippers praying to Zhinu for wisdom – and to grant their wishes. Newly married women would wish for a baby, while single women wanted a good partner. After praying, women would play games or read poems until midnight.
According to legend, the Qixi Festival was a time for women to show off their threading skills, with one tradition seeing who could thread a needle the fastest. Anyone who threaded seven needles without faltering was considered the most skilled. Star-gazing, as part of the worshipping of Zhinu (symbolised by the star Vega), is also part of the festival tradition.
Another is to honour oxen; children would do this by picking wildflowers and draping them over the animal’s horns. A popular dish eaten during the festival is qiao guo : sweet, fried, thin pastry stuffed with fillings such as red bean paste and sesame paste. Fruit is also popular and in some traditions, women would carve it into a variety of shapes such as flowers, animals and birds.
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