BEIJING: Chinese Valentine’s Day is not all about flowers and chocolates. Beyond the romance embraced by some contemporary couples, Qixi is an ancient tradition rooted in legend, prayer and cultural activities that survive to this day.
The festival is observed on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, which fell on Wednesday (Aug 19). Celebrations are also held in Singapore, Vietnam and other Asian countries.
Beijing’s Folk Custom Museum hosted activities on Wednesday under a programme called "Asking for Skills,” reflecting a tradition at the heart of Qixi in which women historically prayed for skillfulness and displayed their abilities through crafts.
"We especially hope that young audiences can understand the meaning of our traditional festivals through interactive and engaging experiences,” said Jia Juan, who works in the museum’s Public Education Department.
The museum, housed in Beijing’s Dongyue Taoist Temple, has been hosting Qixi-related activities for the last 14 years, drawing about 500 people each time.
Wednesday’s programme began with a performance of Chinese classical music, followed by hands-on activities for families inspired by traditional Qixi customs.
One involved dyeing fingernails with garden balsam, a natural pigment traditionally associated with beauty and blessings. Another featured Song brocade bead painting, combining a precious Chinese silk fabric with pearls that symbolise completeness and good fortune.
Participants were encouraged to create their own sachet-shaped Song brocade pearl painting. Their work was meant to embody "qiqiao,” a concept centreed on the pursuit of skill and dexterity.
Wang Xuejie attended with her seven-year-old daughter and they created "qiaoguo,” a pastry made by pressing dough into decorative molds.
"We were able to get a general understanding of how, during the Qixi Festival in ancient times, girls and women expressed their aspirations and hopes for their own growth,” Wang said.
Jia said that Chinese girls started practising qiqiao during the Tang and Song dynasties, which spanned the seventh through the 13th centuries.
"The history of the Qixi Festival can be traced back to ancient people’s worship and study of the stars,” she added.
Qixi has historically centreed on two main elements. One is related to a legend - its romantic component - and the other to qiqiao.
In Chinese mythology, Zhinü, a weaver girl represented by the Vega star, falls in love with Niulang, a cowherd embodied by the Altair star. Their forbidden love leads the Jade Emperor to decree their separation on opposite sides of the Milky Way. They reunite once a year - on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month - on a bridge formed by magpies.
Jia said records of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl date back to the pre-Qin period, before 221 B.C. Then, during the Han Dynasty, customs related to qiqiao began to develop.
Researcher Lynn Wong is eager to revive the festival in Singapore through an initiative called Qixi Fest, a multiday event launched in 2023. This year’s edition will run through Aug. 23.
"We’re trying to create the childhood memories of this new generation of Singaporeans so that they grow up with the stories that our forefathers grew up with,” Wong said.
She recalls that one day, while talking to a friend about Chinese festivals, she realized she had never heard of Qixi. She then started interviewing elders who shared their memories of the festival. That research is documented in a book.
Qixi came to Singapore around the 1930s with Chinese women migrants. Large numbers of men had previously settled there in search of work, but migration patterns shifted. With the women - particularly those from China’s Guangdong region - came customs and beliefs, some of which faded over time.
"I feel that in my generation, we lost quite a lot of our roots,” Wong said.
"I grew up with things like the Tooth Fairy, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Three Little Pigs,’ but what about the stories that our foremothers grew up listening to?”
Hor Xin Hao, of Cantonese descent, is among a handful of people who preserve a traditional observance of Qixi in Singapore.
Late at night on the sixth day of the seventh lunar month, his family sets up a prayer table facing the night sky in front of his house. They pray past midnight and make offerings to the Seven Maidens, celestial sisters including the Weaver Girl.
Ritual gifts include incense, flowers, perfume, cosmetics and soap, which Hor said are believed to bring beauty and charm after being blessed by the cowherd and seven maidens.
"I personally feel that the idea of a Valentine’s Day actually reduces the original idea behind the festival into something narrower,” said Hor, who sees Qixi as a celebration of traditional values and ancestral legacy.
"It contains the way we look at life from the interaction between us and the universe,” he said. - AP
Associated Press video producer Olivia Zhang contributed.
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