China's Tanabata Valentine's Day Customs and Habits

The seventh day of the seventh month is a starry summer night, with a grayish-white glittering band in the sky running across the north and south, which is the Milky Way composed of dense stars. Here is my Chinese Tanabata Valentine's Day customs and traditions for everyone, welcome to learn and reference, surely helpful to you.

Chinese Tanabata Valentine's Day Customs

1. Begging for coquettish activities. The most common custom of the Tanabata Festival is the various begging activities carried out by women on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month. Begging for coquettish way is mostly girls threading check coquettish, do some small objects race coquettish, put some fruits and melons begging for coquettish, the way of begging for coquettish in various regions is not the same, each has its own interesting. Tanabata begging food, to Qiaoguo is the most famous. Qiaojiao is also known as "Begging Fruit" and has many styles. The main ingredients are oil, flour, sugar and honey.

2. Worship the Weaving Maiden. In the night of Tanabata, if the girls want to look beautiful or married to a man of their choice, young women want to give birth to a son, etc., can be set up a table under the moonlight, the table set tea, wine, fruit, five (cinnamon, jujubes, hazelnuts, peanuts, melon seeds) and other offerings, and in the bottle inserted with flowers and bundles of red paper, flowers in front of a small incense burner, can be to the Weaving Maiden star in silent prayer, meditate their own affairs of the heart. Worship Vega girls are to fast for a day, bathe properly.

3. Dyeing nails. Speaking of Tanabata dyeing nails may be many people will feel very strange, and in southwest China around the Tanabata custom is to dye nails, many counties in Sichuan Province, as well as Guizhou, Guangdong and other places, also have this custom. Young girls in many areas like to wash their hair with the sap of the tree during the festival, and legend has it that not only can they be young and beautiful, but for unmarried women, they can also find the man of their dreams as soon as possible. Dyeing nails with flowers and plants is also most women and children, in the festival entertainment in a hobby, but also with the fertility beliefs have a close relationship.

4. Women shampooing. Usually wash your hair is a very ordinary thing, so what is the different meaning of women shampooing on the eve of the day? Legend has it that taking spring and river water on the day of Tanabata has the same sacred power of cleansing as taking water from the Milky Way. Therefore, women bathe their hair on this day, also has a special meaning, on behalf of the Milky Way in the sacred water to purify the hair, will be able to get the Goddess of the Weaving God's blessing.

Traditional food for Tanabata

1, dumplings

Jancheng, Cao County, plains and other places to beg for coincidences, but the custom is very interesting: seven good girls set food collection of food and vegetables dumplings, a coin, a needle and a date were wrapped in three dumplings, begging for coincidences, after the event, they get together to eat the dumplings, and the legend says that the money is a blessing, eat the needle, eat the money is a blessing, eat the needle, eat the money is a blessing, eat the needle, eat the money is a blessing, eat the money, eat the needle, eat the money, eat the money is a blessing. After the event, they gather together to eat dumplings, and legend has it that those who eat money are lucky, those who eat needles are skillful, and those who eat jujubes are married early.

2, coquettish fruit

All over the Zhejiang Province in this day with the flour made of various small objects, fried in oil called "coquettish fruit", the evening in the courtyard display coquettish fruit, lotus seed, white lotus root, red rhombus and so on. Qiaoguo is the most famous food for the Tanabata festival. Qiaoguo is also known as "Begging Fruit" and has many styles. The main ingredients are oil, flour, sugar and honey. Tokyo Dreaming Records called "smile aversion child", "fruit and food pattern", the pattern is pressed incense, Fang Sheng and so on.

3, flower melon

Handy women, but also pinch molded a variety of legends related to Tanabata pattern. In addition, begging with the melon can also be a variety of changes. The fruit can be carved into exotic flowers and birds, or carved in relief on the surface of the skin of the melon, known as the "flower melon".

Qiaoguo and Hua Gua is the most common Tanabata food. In history, there are different food customs in different dynasties. For example, in the Wei Dynasty, it was popular to have soup cakes on July 7th. Tang Dynasty festival food, including the seventh of July into the hack cake, and set the seventh of July for the sunshine book festival, three provinces, six ministries below, each given a number of gold, to prepare for the feast, known as "sunshine book will be". Tanabata is also a suitable day for dispensing medicine. It is said to be a secret formula using pine and cypress as medicinal materials, and this magical pill is synthesized by blending dew on the seventh day of the seventh month, and taking one pill can extend life by ten years, and taking two pills can extend life by twenty years. In addition, there are also baiting pine nuts, serving cypress seeds, folding lotus leaves, etc., all known as the immortal medicine of immortality. More practical prescriptions are sunshine acacia juice for hemorrhoids, fried bitter melon for the eyes, picking melon for dysentery, and so on and so forth. How effective, only tried to know the people. Nowadays, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou and other places in Zhejiang Province, in the Tanabata this day, people will also use flour to make a variety of small items, put into the frying pan fried called "Qiaoguo". In the evening, in the cleaned up courtyard, the coquettish fruit, lotus seed, white lotus root, red diamonds, etc., family and friends sitting around together.

Customs of the Tanabata Festival in various regions

Guangdong

In Guangdong, people start to prepare in June, the rice, wheat, mung beans, etc. immersed in a ceramic bowl to wait for germination. Near the eve of the seventh, they will tie up a magpie bridge, but also make a variety of exquisite handicrafts. On the night of Tanabata, people in the hall set up eight immortal table, set up a variety of wonderful flowers and fruit products and women's red clever things.

Minnan

In Minnan, the local people call the Weaving Maiden "Seven Niangma", which is the God who protects the children's safety. It is customary to eat pomegranate, boiled eggs and meat, and glutinous rice with brown sugar on Tanabata to ward off insects and pestilence.

Hebei (Neiqiu)

The temple fair in Neiqiu County on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, as a festival of the Cowherd and Weaving Maiden magpie bridge meeting and set up a temple fair, very rare in the country. The main event of the temple festival is to worship the canopy, in front of the Temple of the Jade Emperor to unfold the canopy, placed around the Dragon Sedan chair, dragon robes, colorful clothes and shoes and other offerings, the guests day and night, in front of the canopy incense worship, and playing musical instruments read and sing their own story of the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden, the popular song. Temple during the most popular to be regarded as singing opera, alternating performances of traditional love plays "carry flowers bridge", "West Wing", "playing the golden branch", "eight pieces of clothing", "on the flower gun" and so on, has been playing 5 to 7 days, the seventh night of July must be sung in the Tianhe with "also known as" Cowherd with the Weaving Maiden ". And so after the brake play, incinerate all the offerings, said shed, the end of the temple fair.