Double Seventh Festival falls on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, also known as Qi Qiao Festival or Daughter’s Festival. Some people call it a Chinese Valentine’s Day.
According to legend, the Double Seventh Festival marks the meeting date for the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid. The Cowherd, whose parents died when he was a child, was driven out of his home by his sister-in-law. So, he lived by himself herding a cow that was originally a celestial beast sent to Earth as punishment for having done something wrong. The Weaver Maid, the youngest daughter of the Queen Mother in Heaven, had clever hands and good sense. In her spare time, she would come to Earth with her sisters for fun.
One day, the Weaver Maid and her sisters were bathing in the river. The cowherd and his charge happened to pass by, and he was immediately attracted by the most adorable little fairy. The cow told the herdsman: “The youngest and the most beautiful fairy was the Weaver Maid. Take away her colorful garment, so she cannot return to Heaven without her clothes, and will stay with you and be your wife.” The cowherd did so, and the Weaver Maid finally became his wife.
The cowherd worked in the field and the Weaver Maid wove at home. The Weaver Maid brought home giant silkworms from Heaven and taught everyone to breed silkworms, reel off raw silk from cocoons and weave beautiful silk fabrics. They lived a happy life and gave birth to a boy and a girl.
Unfortunately, the Queen Mother soon found out and personally came down to Earth and took the Weaver Maid back.
The cowherd tried to catch up with his wife, but there was no way for him to fly to Heaven. The cow told the herdsman to wear the shoes made of its leather when it died to fly to Heaven. The cowherd did as he was bid and soared skywards shouldering a basket loaded with his son and daughter. At the time when he was about to catch up with his wife, the Queen Mother took off one of her gold hairpins and made a stroke and a billowy river appeared in front of him. The herdsman and Weaver Maid were separated forever and could only face the stream with their tears. Their loyalty in love touched the magpies and tens of thousands of them came to build a bridge for the two lovers to meet each other. The Queen Mother was eventually moved and allowed them to meet each year on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month.
On the night of Double Seventh Festival, generations of grandmothers would tell their grandchildren about the love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid, so that this story is widely known in China. But the two initially appeared in the form of stars rather than a pair of lovers. The Cowherd and the Weaver Maid first appeared in The Book of Songs, in which they were actually the stars Altair and Vega in the Milky Way. Not until the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) did they become gods. “Behold the cowherd star hung aloft at night, watching, with a lonely unrest, his Weaving Maid ahead.” These words in the Nineteen Ancient Poems in the Late Han Dynasty illustrated the romantic relationship between the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid and their joys and sorrows.
On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month each year, the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid meet on Magpie Bridge. On the Earth, young men and women watched the night sky under their grape arbors in the hope of seeing the reunion and having their messages heard.
Girls pray for ingenuity and smartness, a beautiful appearance and a pleasant marriage.
Many women aspire to the Weaver Maid’s ingenuity, so Qi Qiao, which means praying for ingenuity, is the most important custom of the Double Seventh Festival. When the crescent moon hung in the sky, the girls would arrange tea and wine, fresh and dried fruit in their courtyards; they would first worship the two stars, make a wish, and then throw half the offerings onto the roof for the Weaver Girl, and keep the remaining half for themselves. The girls drank and chatted, playing Qi Qiao games. Qi Qiao includes two types of games, one is Bu Qiao, which means ingenuity in predicting, to find out who was skillful and who was clumsy by throwing a needle into water and watching the shadow of the needle, or by observing whether the net woven by Xizhu (spider of happiness) on the fruit was dense or sparse. The other is Sai Qiao, which means ingenuity in racing, to see who was fastest in sewing work. This game sprang up in the Han Dynasty, and became the most prevalent in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when there was a special market for Qi Qiao appliances in the capital.
In the era of machines replacing handwork, these customs have gradually weakened and even disappeared, but Double Seventh Festival is still a romantic traditional festival, and the love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid has been circulated in folklore. The concept of love -“If love between both sides can last for aye, why need they stay together night and day?” (quoted from Magpie Fairies by Qin Guan in the Northern Song Dynasty) - is deeply embedded into the bone marrow of the Chinese people.
In modern China, the concept is still so much cherished that, if two sides have true love for each other, their love will last forever though they are far apart and cannot often meet.
