What is the Tanabata Festival?

The Tanabata is a traditional Chinese festival, also known as the Beggar's Day, the Festival of Seven Coincidences, or the Birthday of the Seven Sisters, and is also known as the Chinese Valentine's Day, which falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar every year.

On the day of Tanabata, legend has it that it is the day when the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden meet at the Magpie Bridge. The legend is certainly very beautiful, but according to ancient astronomy, there are indeed two stars, Altair and Vega.

Ancient astronomical calendars used the time when these two stars intersected as the day of transition. This day also happens to be July 7 on the lunar calendar, and this number is in line with the ancient metaphysics that is considered very auspicious, so the seventh day of the lunar calendar as the Tanabata Festival.

Influence of the festival

Japan

Influenced by Chinese culture, the Japanese also have a tradition of celebrating the Tanabata Festival, which they call "Tanabata Matsuri". The Tanabata Festival in Japan originated from China and is said to have been introduced in the Nara period. From the middle of the Nara period, the Japanese court and high society imitated the Tang dynasty, and Tanabata festivals, needle-piercing begging, and Tanabata poems became popular. The custom of "begging for coquettish objects" was continued, but it had nothing to do with love. Tanabata was originally the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan abolished the lunar calendar, so the Tanabata Festival in Japan, is the annual solar calendar July 7th.