Is there a custom to have the groom get married with a red head covering?

In our country, the night of the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the weather is warm, grass and trees, which is commonly known as the Tanabata Festival, some people call it "Begging for coincidence" or "daughter festival", which is the most romantic of the traditional Chinese festivals in the color of a festival, but also in the past, the girls most important day. The girls attach the most importance to the day.

On a clear summer and fall night, the stars in the sky shine brightly, and a white Milky Way runs across the north and south, and on the east and west banks of the river, there is a shining star on each side, looking at each other across the river, facing each other from afar, and that is the Altair and Vega stars.

Sitting on the eve of Tanabata to see the Altair and Vega stars, is a folk custom, according to legend, in this night every year, is the heavenly Weaving Maiden and the Cowherd in the magpie bridge meeting time. The Weaving Maiden is a beautiful, clever, dexterous nymphs, the mortal women will be begging for her wisdom and skill on this night, but also to her to ask for the gift of marriage, so the seventh day of the seventh month is also known as the Begging for coincidence festival.

People say that on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month, you can see the Milky Way of the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden, or you can overhear the words of love of the two people who meet in the sky under the shelf of melons and fruits.

Customs of the Tanabata Festival

The most common custom of the Tanabata Festival is the begging for coquettish objects by women on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month.

Begging for coquettish things is mostly done by girls threading needles and threads to detect coquettishness, making some small articles to race coquettishness, and arranging some melons and fruits to beg for coquettishness, and the way of begging for coquettishness varies in different regions, which is interesting in its own way.

In Shandong Jinan, Huimin, Gaoqing and other places in the begging activities are very simple, just display fruits and melons begging for coquettish, such as a happy spider in the fruits and melons on top of the web, it means that begging for coquettish. And Jancheng, Cao County, plains and other places to eat coquettish rice begging custom is very interesting: seven good girl set food set vegetable dumplings, a coin, a needle and a jujube were wrapped into three dumplings, begging for coquettish activities, they get together to eat dumplings, the legend of eating to the money of the blessing to eat to the needle of the hands of the clever to eat the jujube of the early marriage.

The activities of the Beggar's Day in some places are of a competitive nature, similar to the ancient custom of fighting. In recent times, the threading of the needle, steaming coquettish paradox, branding coquettish fruit, but also some places have the custom of making coquettish bud soup, usually on the first day of July will be soaked in water to germinate grains, Tanabata on this day, cut buds to make soup, the children of the place pay special attention to eating coquettish buds, as well as made in the form of face molding, paper cutting, color embroidery and other forms of decorations, etc. is the evolution of the custom of the fight coquettish. On the other hand, shepherd children would pick wildflowers and hang them on the horns of cows on the eve of the seventh day of the seventh month, which is called "congratulating the birthday of the cow" (legend has it that the seventh day of the seventh month is the birthday of the cow).

Zhucheng, Tengxian, Zouxian area on the eve of the rain is called "Acacia rain" or "Acacia tears", because the cowherd and the weaving maiden meet due. Jiaodong, Southwest Lu and other places in the legend of the day magpies are very few, are to the sky to build a magpie bridge to go.

In today's Zhejiang Province, there are still similar begging customs. Such as Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou and other places, in this day with flour to make a variety of small objects, fried in oil called "Qiaoguo", the evening in the courtyard display Qiaoguo, lotus seed, white lotus root, red rhombus and so on. Girls threaded needles to the moon to pray for the weaving maiden to give skill, or catch a spider, put in a box, the next day to open the box, such as the web has been called to get skill.

In the Shaoxing countryside, this night there will be many young girls alone secretly hiding in the growth of lush pumpkin shed, in the dead of night when you can hear the Cowherd and Weaving Maiden meet whispering, the girl to be married later will be able to get the millennium of undying love.

In order to express people's hope that the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden can live a good and happy family life every day, in the area of Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, on the seventh day of the seventh month, every family has to kill a chicken, which means that the night the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden will meet each other, and if there is no rooster to announce the daybreak, they will be able to stay together forever.

In western Guangxi, legend has it that on the seventh day of the seventh month morning, the fairies want to come down to take a bath, drink their bath water can be to ward off evil spirits, cure diseases and prolong life. This water is called "double seven water", people in this day when the cock crows, scrambling to go to the river to get water, retrieved with a new urn, to be used later.

The Beggar's Nest in Guangzhou is unique, before the festival, the girls are prepared to use colored paper, grass, string, etc., compiled into a variety of curious small artifacts, but also grain seeds and mung beans into a small box soaked in water, so that germination, when the buds grow to more than two inches long, used to worship the gods, known as the "worship of the immortal Harvest" and When the buds grow to more than two inches long, they are used to worship the gods, which is called "Worshiping the Immortal Harvest" and "Worshiping the Divine Vegetables. From the sixth night to the seventh night, two nights in a row, the girls put on new clothes, wear new jewelry, everything is arranged, then burning incense and candles, kneeling to the starry sky, known as the "welcome to the immortal", from the third night to the fifth night, to be worshiped seven times in a row.

After worshipping the fairy, the girls hold the colorful threads against the shadow of the lamp and pass the threads through the needle holes, such as a breath of air can wear seven needle holes is called to get cozy, known as coquettish, wear less than seven needle holes is called to lose coquettish. After Tanabata, the girls will make small crafts, toys to give each other, to show friendship.

In Fujian, on the Tanabata Festival, the Weaving Maiden is asked to appreciate and taste the fruits and melons, in order to ask for her blessing for a good harvest in the coming year. Offerings include tea, wine, fresh fruits, five seeds (cinnamon, jujube, hazelnut, peanut and melon seeds), flowers and pollen for women's make-up as well as an upper incense burner. Usually after fasting and bathing, everyone takes turns to burn incense in front of the offering table and pray silently for their wishes. The women not only beg for coquettishness, but also for children, longevity, beauty and love. Afterwards, we eat fruit, drink tea and chat, while playing the begging game, begging game there are two kinds: one is "divination", that is, with the divining tool to ask yourself whether it is tricky or stupid; the other is the race tricky, that is, who threads a needle fast, who will be tricky, the slow one is called "losing tricky", "losing tricky", and "losing tricky". The other is the race, that is, whoever is fast in threading the needle, who gets the trick, and the slow one is called "losing the trick", and the one who "loses the trick" has to give the one who gets the trick a small gift prepared in advance.

Some regions also organize "seven sisters will", each region of the "seven sisters will" gathered in the Zongxiang Hall set down a variety of brightly colored incense, remote sacrifice to the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden, "incense" are papier-maché. "The incense burners are all made of papier-maché and are filled with a wide array of flowers, fruits, rouge powder, small paper clothes, shoes, daily necessities and embroidery. The "Seven Sisters' Meetings" in different regions would work on the joss sticks and compete to see who could make the most exquisite joss sticks. Today, this kind of activity has been forgotten, and only a very small number of clansmen guilds still set up joss sticks to worship the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden on this festival. The joss sticks are usually ready on the seventh day of the seventh month, and the begging to the weaving maiden begins in the evening.

The most famous food for begging on the seventh day of the seventh month is Qiaoguo. Qiaojiao, also known as "Begging Fruit", comes in many styles. The main materials are oil, flour, sugar and honey. Song Dynasty, the market has been the Tanabata Qiaojiao for sale, Qiaojiao practice is: first sugar in a pot melted into syrup, then and into the flour, sesame, mix well and then spread on the case to defend the thin, cooled with a knife and cut into rectangles, and finally folded for the pike-shaped Qiaojiao embryo, into the oil deep-fried to golden brown that is. The women with good hands will also make all kinds of patterns related to the Tanabata legend.

In addition, begging with the melon also has a variety of variations: or the melon carved into exotic flowers and birds, or in the surface of the skin of the melon in relief patterns; such melons are called "flower melon".

Eating food

The food customs of the Tanabata Festival, varying from place to place, are generally referred to as eating food, which is more dumplings, noodles, oil fruit, wontons and other food for this festival. Eat cloud noodles, this noodle has to be made of dew, eat it can get coquettish. There are also many folk pastry store, like to make some of the image of the weaving lady of the pasty candy, commonly known as "coquettish people" "coquettish pastry", sold and known as "send coquettish people", this custom has been passed down in some regions This custom has been passed down in some areas to this day.