Introduction

The Double Seventh Festival, or Chinese Valentine’s Day, originated in China, and is one of the important Han Chinese folk festivals, and also a traditional festival of various countries in East Asia which is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar.

Young women are the main participants of the event. The main content of the festival is praying for ingenuity (qiqiao). In the past people called it “Qiqiao Festival” or “Maidens Festival”. Today it has developed into China’s Valentine’s Day.

Legend

Chinese Valentine’s Day originates in the legend of the cow herder and the weaver girl. The cow herder’s parents passed away at a young age, and he was frequently abused by his elder brother’s wife. He only had a cow as a companion.

One day, fairies from heaven came to bathe in the Yin River. The cow herder grabbed the clothes of the weaver girl while hiding in reeds. The panicked fairies quickly rushed onto shore, put on their clothes, and flew away. Only the weaver girl remained. The weaver girl agreed to be the cow herder’s wife after he proposed to her.

After they were married, the two were deeply devoted to each other and had one son and one daughter. Their lives were very happy. Afterwards, when the old cow was about to pass away, he urged the cow herder to save his skin and to wear it and ask for help when in grave danger. After the old cow passed away, husband and wife reluctantly cut off the cow’s hide, and buried the cow on a mountain slope.

The Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West burst in to a fit of rage after learning of the marriage between the weaver girl and the cow herder, and ordered the sky god to go to the world of man and grab the weaver girl.

The sky god grabbed the weaver girl while the cow herder was away from home. When the cow herder returned home and did not see his wife, he immediately put on the cow skin, and grabbed his two children and went off in pursuit.

Seeing that he was about to catch up to them, the Queen Mother of the West pulled off the golden hairpin on her head in a moment of panic and made a swipe at the Yin River. In a flash the clear and shallow Yin River became turbid and billowy. The cow herder was unable to cross it.

From then on, the cow herder and the weaver girl were only able to see each othe across the river. The Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother of the West were incapable of dissuading them of their true affection for each other, and allowed them to meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month. 

According to legend magpies fly into the sky and form a bridge for the cow herder and the weaver girl to meet on Yin River every year . In addition, when all is quiet in the dead of night on Chinese Valentine’s  Day, people can still hear the lover’s prattle between the cow herder and the weaver girl underneath grape trellises or other fruit trellises.

Customs Threading Needle and Praying for Ingenuity (穿针乞巧)

This custom originates in the Han Dynasty. On the night of Chinese Valentine’s day, women grasp five colored string in their hands, face the moon, and thread them one after another into consecutively arranged nine hole needles, and pray that they can be as ingenious as the fairies in heaven, and become proficient at weaving.  

Spider Prayer (喜蛛应巧)

Fruit is placed in a fruit bowl, and everyone waits to see if a ‘happy spider’ (a small spider) weaves a web in it. The first to discover it will receive good fortune and success.

Celebrate Cow Birthdays (为牛庆生)

Children pick wild flowers and put them on ox horns on Chinese Valentine’s Day. This is also called “celebrating the cow’s birthday”. This is because the cow herder wore the cow’s skin in search of the weaver girl, after the Queen Mother of the West separated the cow herder and the weaver girl with a sky river. People came up with the custom of “celebrating the cow’s birthday” to commemorate the old cow’s spirit of self-sacrifice.

Washing Hair（洗发）

Young girls in many places like to use tree sap to wash their hair during this festival. It can not only make you young and beautiful, but also help unmarried girls quickly find Mr. Right. Women who wash their hair on this day symbolizes cleaning one’s hair in the holy water of the Yin River, and means you can definitely receive the blessings and protection of the weaver girl god.

Eat Qiao Fruit (吃巧果)

Also called “Qiqiao Fruit”, it comes in many varieties, and its primary ingredient is oil and molasses.