202 1 Is Valentine's Day in China Lantern Festival or Qixi Lantern Festival or Qixi which is Valentine's Day in China?

202 1 Is Valentine's Day in China Lantern Festival or Qixi Lantern Festival or Qixi which is Valentine's Day in China?

As far as domestic folklore is concerned, there is none. If there must be a festival similar to Western Valentine's Day, the Lantern Festival is closer. Lantern Festival Lantern Festival is very lively, and girls who don't usually go out can also go out to play in a justified way, expanding opportunities for communication with the opposite sex.

As Tanabata is gradually called "Valentine's Day in China", merchants from all walks of life also took the opportunity to launch promotional activities, which was very lively for a while. But is this really the case? It is reported that Feng Jicai, honorary chairman of China Folk Writers Association, once said that Tanabata is a festival with love as the theme and women as the protagonist, with the folklore of Cowherd and Weaver Girl as the carrier. According to folklore, Tanabata expresses the feelings of "never leaving" and "growing old together" between married men and women, and keeps the promise of love, rather than expressing the feelings of lovers before marriage. Therefore, it is inappropriate to call Tanabata Valentine's Day in China.

The reporter interviewed Wang Juan and Gao Wei, two experts who study folk customs. They both said that it is a misunderstanding of the connotation of Qixi as "Valentine's Day". Wang Juan said that on Tanabata, girls will take part in a series of activities, such as "floating needles for cleverness", with the focus on praying for their intelligence.

"Tanabata is a traditional begging festival. At that time, the weather was getting colder and people began to prepare winter clothes. In the past, women were the protagonists of this festival. " Gao Wei also said that the main custom of Tanabata is to worship smart girls and eat appropriate fruits, and girls will compete for who is better at needlework. Lantern Festival is a bit of a "mass carnival". Women in boudoir can also go out to see lanterns and meet the opposite sex. Comparatively speaking, Lantern Festival is more like "China Valentine's Day".

Indeed, the poetic and romantic Lantern Festival is often associated with love. Many poems handed down from generation to generation express their love through Yuanxiao. Ouyang Xiu in the Northern Song Dynasty once wrote: "This year's Lantern Festival, the moon lantern is still there; I didn't see it last year and cried Man Chun's shirt sleeve. "

"Compared with other festivals and solar terms, the Lantern Festival retains a little more folk customs, which is related to its emphasis on' lively' characteristics. However, it is precisely because of this feature that the custom of women going out to watch lanterns and dating men and women has been diluted. Tanabata is also easily considered as' China Valentine's Day' to some extent because of the widespread spread of the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl. " Gao Wei also said that there is no need to be too harsh on this title.

Gao Wei also said that in recent years, due to social concerns and other reasons, traditional festivals and customs such as the Lantern Festival have been paid more and more attention, and there are more and more related activities. However, the inheritance and development of these beneficial folk customs still need the active guidance of the government and the real participation of ordinary people in order to effectively inherit the excellent Chinese traditional culture.

The origin of Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival, also known as "Shangyuan Festival" and "Lantern Festival". The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar. The ancients called the night "Xiao", so they called the fifteenth day of the first month the Lantern Festival.

The fifteenth day of the first month is the night of the first full moon in a year and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. The night when spring returns to the earth symbolizes the arrival of spring. People eat Yuanxiao, enjoy lanterns and solve riddles on lanterns to celebrate it, and also celebrate the continuation of the Spring Festival.

With the new Spring Festival, the joy of the first month and the reunion of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, Lantern Festival has become one of the favorite traditional festivals of thousands of families.

The origin of tanabata

Tanabata, formerly known as the Begging Festival. The Qixi Begging for Qiao Qi originated in the Han Dynasty. Ge Hong's Miscellaneous Notes on Xijing in the Eastern Jin Dynasty recorded that "women in the Han Dynasty often opened the front building on July 7 with seven-hole needles on Han stone reliefs, which was the earliest begging record in ancient documents we have seen." In later Tang and Song poems, women's begging for cleverness was repeatedly mentioned. In the Tang Dynasty, Wang Jian wrote a poem "The stars are bright and the pearls are bright, and Gong E is busy begging for cleverness". According to "The Legacy of Kaiyuan Tianbao", every time Emperor Taizong and his concubines held a banquet in the Qing Palace on Tanabata, the ladies-in-waiting begged with their own ingenuity. This custom is also enduring among the people and passed down from generation to generation.

Qixi originated from people's worship of nature. According to historical documents, at least three or four thousand years ago, with people's understanding of astronomy and the emergence of textile technology, there was a record of Altair Vega. People worship the stars far more than Altair and Vega. They think that there are seven stars representing directions in the east, west, north and south, which are collectively called 28 nights, among which the Big Dipper is the brightest and can be used to tell directions at night. The first star of the Big Dipper is called Kuixing, also known as the champion. Later, with the imperial examination system, the top scholar in the middle school was called "Dakui Scholar in the World", and the scholars called Tanabata "Kuixing Festival" or "Book-drying Festival", which preserved the trace that the earliest Tanabata originated from worshipping stars.

Qixi also comes from the ancient people's worship of time. "Seven" and "period" are homophonic, and both the month and the day are "seven", giving people a sense of time. In ancient China, the sun and moon, together with the five planets of water, fire, wood, gold and earth, were called "Seven Obsidian". Seven figures are staged in time among the people, and the calculation of time often ends with "July 7th". In old Beijing, when doing Dojo for the dead, it was often done by "July 7th". Using "seven obsidians" to calculate the current "week" is still reserved in Japanese. "Seven" and "Auspicious" are homophonic, and "July 7th" has a double auspicious meaning, which is an auspicious day. In Taiwan Province Province, July is called "Joy brings good luck" month. Because the happy character in cursive script looks like "seventy-seven", 77 years old is also called "Happy Birthday".