What is the meaning of Tanabata?

Valentine's Day in China is not only a festival to worship Seven Sisters, but also a festival of love. It is a comprehensive festival with the folk custom of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" as the carrier, with the theme of blessing, begging and courtship, and women as the main body.

The "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" on Tanabata originated from people's worship of natural phenomena. In ancient times, planetariums were associated with geographical areas. This correspondence is called "dividing stars" in astronomy and "dividing fields" in geography. According to legend, on the seventh day of July every year, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl will meet at the Magpie Bridge in the sky.

Folklore:

Xiangqiaohui

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.

Dew contact

In rural areas of Zhejiang, it is popular to use washbasins to receive dew. Legend has it that the dew on Tanabata is the tears when cowherd and weaver girl meet. If you put it in your eyes and hands, it can make people agile.