Traditional Folk Activities of Valentine's Day in China

The traditional folk activities of Tanabata are: Xiangqiao Festival, worship of seven sisters, clever fighting, begging for marriage, swimming in seven sisters' water and storing water on Tanabata.

1, Xiangqiao Club

In Yixing, Jiangsu Province, there is the custom of the Qixi Xiangqiao Festival. Every year on Tanabata, someone will participate and build a fragrant bridge. The so-called incense bridge is a bridge with a length of four or five meters and a width of about half a meter, which is made of all kinds of thick and long incense-wrapped paper. It is equipped with railings and decorated with flowers made of five-color lines. At night, people offered sacrifices to the binary star, prayed for good luck, and then burned the incense bridge, symbolizing that the binary star had crossed the incense bridge and met happily. This fragrant bridge originated from the legendary magpie bridge legend.

2. Worship Seven Sisters

On July 7th, the Seven Mothers' Meeting was called "Worship Seven Sisters" in Guangdong and "Worship Seven Mothers" in Fujian and Taiwan Province. In the old days, it was very lively to celebrate the Seven Qiao Festival in Guangdong. Liu Kezhuang once wrote a poem in the Song Dynasty: "Melons and fruits are blessed with fists, and their throats sell their voices. Cantonese people are very smart, and the lights are on until dawn. "

3. Play skillfully

The "divination" methods for judging whether a good fighter is good at fighting on Tanabata mainly include the following forms: piercing a needle for cleverness, liking spiders for cleverness, piercing a needle on the moon, losing cleverness, being good at fighting at night and throwing a needle for cleverness.

Step 4 propose marriage

On a clear summer and autumn night, the sky is full of stars, and a galaxy runs across the north and south. On the east and west banks of the Milky Way, there is a shining star across a river, that is Altair and Vega. The actress Wu later evolved into a mythical goddess. People called her Seven Sisters, Fairy and Seven Mothers. She is the patron saint of Zhiyun, lovers, women and children.

5. Tour Seven Sisters Water.

According to folklore, on Qixi, seven fairies will descend from the sky and bathe in the river. At this time, the river is polluted with fairy dust, which will bring people peach blossoms.

Step 6 store tanabata water

"Qixi Water" is also called "Qiqi Water". It is said that "Tanabata Water" has magical effects, and it can be used for a long time to treat burns and remove sores. Guangdong and Guangxi all have the custom of storing "Qixi water", that is, after the first cock crow on the morning of the seventh day, each family goes to the well or the river to draw water for storage.