What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day?

What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day?

What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day? Many people don't know what a festival is, because in many people's impressions, Tanabata is the day when the cowherd and the weaver girl meet at the Magpie Bridge. This festival is in memory of them. What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day? Let's have a look.

What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day? 1 Tanabata is Valentine's Day. Tanabata is a traditional festival in China and also a Valentine's Day in China.

Valentine's Day in China is not only a festival to worship Seven Sisters, but also a festival of love. It is a comprehensive festival with the folk custom of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" as the carrier, with the theme of blessing, begging and courtship, and women as the main body.

The "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" on Tanabata originated from people's worship of natural phenomena. In ancient times, planetariums were associated with geographical areas. This correspondence is called "dividing stars" in astronomy and "dividing fields" in geography. According to legend, on the seventh day of July every year, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl will meet at the Magpie Bridge in the sky.

Festival custom

1, listen to whispers

In some rural areas of Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, there will be many beautiful girls hiding under the lush pumpkin shed on Qixi night. If you can hear the whispers of cowherd and weaver girl meeting in the dead of night, the girl to be married will get eternal love in the future.

2. Water purification video

Jojo activity in Jiangsu is to take a bowl of clean water and expose it to the sun, and then spend the night outdoors. It is to pick up thin straw sticks and float in the water, all by their shadows. There are also many young women who use small needles to see the shadow of underwater needles to fulfill their wisdom and stupidity. Han people in other areas also use this method to make themselves smart and stupid.

Step 3 worship god

Some villages in western Guangdong have the custom of worshipping God on Tanabata. According to traditional customs, people worship the "Master" (Bodhisattva) in the temple first, and then worship the earth god. Generally, there are glutinous rice, three teas, five wines, fruits and so on.

What is Valentine's Day in China? Is today Valentine's Day? Is Tanabata "Valentine's Day"? Look at how the ancients spent Tanabata.

The seventh day of July is a traditional festival in China, which is also a carnival for businessmen and couples. Today, Valentine's Day in China is regarded as "Valentine's Day" in China. Couples will exchange gifts and start a sweet date on this day, while merchants are busy stocking up and selling more goods in a festive atmosphere. Especially in recent years, with the impact of foreign festivals, many people hope to use China Valentine's Day to awaken people's memories of traditional culture. This is of course a good thing, but we must not know a little about traditional festivals, such as Valentine's Day in China, which was not just Valentine's Day in ancient times.

The written record about Tanabata first appeared in The Book of Songs, and The Book of Songs Dadong recorded: "You are a weaver girl with seven fragrant flowers all day long. Even if the weaver girl is busy, she can't knit a stripe well. Give him a cow instead of a box. " This poem is the embryonic form of the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, but it is not a love story at this time, but tells the busy work of the Weaver Girl from the perspective of agricultural civilization. Cowherd and Weaver Girl are one of the sources of Valentine's Day in China, but not all of them.

The ancient stargazing culture in China is profound and has a long history, and many ancient books have recorded astrological culture. For example, it is recorded in the preface to the spring and autumn life calendar: "the world is open, and everything is turbid; Yin and Yang depend on ... Morning glory blooms in the sun, the moon and the five latitudes; Forty-five thousand years, the sun, the moon and the five latitudes turn; ... the image of the sky, the instrument of the law and the earth, and the sun and the moon. " "Geography of Hanshu" says: "Guangdong (Vietnam) is divided into cowherd and weaver girl, and now Cangwu, Yulin, Hepu, Jiaotoe, Jiuzhen, Nanhai and Rinan are all divided into Guangdong". Miss Wu here is the Weaver Girl. She gradually evolved into a goddess, known as Seven Sisters and the Queen of the Seven Stars. She is good at weaving clouds and is the protector of women and children.

In addition, Qixi also stems from people's worship of special numbers and time. In ancient times, people thought that the first day of the first month, the second day of February and the third day of March were auspicious days, and July 7th, as one of them, naturally attracted people's attention. "Taiping Yulan" also records: "Millet is ripe in July, and the seventh day is Yang, so it is precious." This shows that the ancients thought this day was a symbol of harvest, so the whole world should celebrate July 7 and the world should be happy together.

On Valentine's Day in ancient China, the "main force" was women and children, not lovers. For example, in the Song Dynasty's Dream of Liang Lu, it was recorded: "July 7th is called Valentine's Day in China. At night, all the children and women in the city, rich and poor, put on new clothes. The rich family ... makes the girl look forward to the moon, look forward to fighting and worship, and beg for cleverness with the female cow. Or take a little spider and put it in a small box of gold and silver. The next morning, you can see its net is round and straight, which is a clever name. " By the Song Dynasty, the story of Cowherd and Weaver Girl had been widely circulated, but most of the participants were women and children, and children naturally participated in various festivals. Therefore, strictly speaking, Valentine's Day in ancient China is actually "Women's Day".

Since it is "Women's Day", the protagonist of the festival is of course a woman. In ancient China, Valentine's Day was also called "Seven Sisters's birthday". On this day, girls will worship melons and fruits in front of the Weaver Maid at night, begging the goddess to give them dexterous hands and exquisite weaving skills. Of course, there are also girls who seek perfect looks.

Until the Eastern Han Dynasty, during the war, people pinned their hopes and beauty on fairy tales, and the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl gradually formed. The story of "The Weaver Girl Crossing the River on Tanabata and Meeting at the Que Bridge" in Customs Tong of the Eastern Han Dynasty is the embryonic form of the story, but in Liang Yinyun's novel of the Southern Dynasty, it is recorded that "There was a weaver girl in the east of Tianhe, and the emperor pitied her and promised to marry a cowherd in Hexi, and gave up weaving from then on. The Emperor of Heaven was furious, ordered to return to Hedong, but held an annual meeting ",which is already a full version of the story. "

Valentine's Day in China has an ancient origin and a long history. After thousands of years of development and integration, colorful and distinctive holiday customs have been formed. For example, in the Western Han Dynasty, women would pray for blessings on this day. Liu Xin recorded in "Miscellanies of Xijing": "Women in the Han Dynasty often put seven-hole needles on the floor of Jinkai on July 7, and everyone is interested in it." During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the South attached great importance to Valentine's Day in China, and the festival ceremony was very grand. In the Tang Dynasty, there was also a special "Jojo House" in the palace for the concubines and women in the palace to ask the Seven-Star Queen for help. In the Song Dynasty, Tanabata became a national statutory holiday, and its status among the people naturally rose, becoming a national holiday. Every July 7th, the Song Dynasty will also set up a special begging market. "Drunken Weng Tan Lu" records: "On Tanabata, I bought and sold in front of the building. From July 1 ST, horses and chariots were swallowed, and three days before Chinese Valentine's Day, horses and chariots were not allowed to pass, and they stopped driving again and again until the night. " It is not difficult to see the grand occasion of Qixi in Song Dynasty through records. But at this time, the protagonist of Tanabata is still a woman, the man is just an appreciator, and the engagement between men and women is only a small part of "Daughter's Day".

Just as there are dragon boats and zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, Tanabata also has its own competition, which is the "Bridge Race". On Tanabata, women will wear seven-hole needles in the competition. Women who wear fast will be blessed by the goddess and will be handy in the future. Those who wear slowly need to give gifts prepared in advance to the winners. "Records of Ye Ting in Yuanshi County" has a special record about this: "Nine tables are cited, and seven joys are a place of begging for ingenuity. In the evening, the ladies-in-waiting went on stage to wear Kyubi no Youko needles with colored silk. The person who finishes first is smart, and the person who finishes late is called a loser. Everyone contributed a gift. " In addition, there was a custom of wearing the moon in ancient times. The so-called moon-wearing means that a woman bows down to Vega first, then takes out colorful silk threads and seven silver needles and passes through the moon. For the ancients, the most interesting thing is that spiders should be smart. On this day, women will catch small spiders and put them in boxes. After waiting for a while, they will open the box. The denser the cobwebs inside, the more original the future owner will be.

In modern times, the folk Tanabata is still grand. For example, people in Yixing, Zhejiang will gather on this day, build a fragrant bridge and offer sacrifices to the double stars, symbolizing the meeting of the cowherd and the weaver girl. The Seven Qiao Festival in Guangdong is extremely grand, and the celebration ceremony began on the evening of July 6th. People will put many melons and fruits and strange things on the incense table, which are dazzling and colorful.

Until modern times, with the development of commodity economy, Valentine's Day on Qixi became more and more intense. Many people criticize this and think that Valentine's Day in China is not Valentine's Day. But from another angle, the development of commodity economy is an inevitable trend. If it can promote the prosperity of traditional festivals, even if there is misunderstanding, only we can understand the real Valentine's Day in China, then it is also a beautiful misunderstanding.