Qixi Festival & Valentine’s Day Welcome to this edition of China Lifestyle Journeys, the series that brings you chats, discussions and insights on all aspects of Chinese living. We will cover festivals, food, traditions, customs and much, much more. I’m your host Jocelyn… and I’m Mat, just an English guy with lots of questions. So, Mat, what’s your big question today? (Mat) Hello and welcome to another episode of China Lifestyle Journeys. And today we are talking about something that I guess most people know about. And that’s Valentine’s Day, or should I say we are going to talk two important dates in the calendar1, Valentine’s Day and something called the Qixi Festival. So first of all, I think a good place to start is with the question, is the Qixi Festival the same as Valentine’s Day? (Jocelyn) Thank you, Mat. Yes, that’s a good question to open with. So, both the Qixi Festival and Valentine's Day are celebrations of love. They do have some differences. The Qixi Festival, is sometimes called Chinese Valentine's Day, and I think this can cause some confusion, because it’s actually celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar2 month in the Chinese calendar (which is usually around the month of August), whereas the Valentine’s Day is in February. And the Qixi Festival has its own unique customs, traditions and cultural significance, so it’s quitemisleading3 to call it “Chinese Valentine’s Day”, actually. So while they both share some similarities on the theme of love, they havedistinct4 origins, customs, andsymbolism5. So, in short, they are two quite separate and distinct celebrations. (Mat) OK, so now we know that these are two separate things, really quite different. So let’s start with the origins. I know that the European Valentine’s Day comes from both Christian and ancient Roman traditions. It’s a combination ofboth. I think it’s named after a saint, Saint Valentine6, but I remember reading somewhere. There’s actually more than one Saint Valentine, there’s probably about four, so nobody really knows the story behind the celebration of Valentine’s Day, because there are many different versions of the same story. So, Jocelyn, tell me something about the origins of the QixiFestival. (Jocelyn) OK. The origins of the Qixi Festival can be traced back to ancient Chinese folklore7. The festival is based on an interesting legend about two characters Niulang (the Cowherd8) and Zhinv (the Weaving9 Maid).   The story goes that a warm-hearted10 cowherd called Niulang, who lost his parents and led a hard life with an old ox, and he fell in love with11 a girl named Zhinv, a weaving maid who escaped from the heaven because all the strict rules there made her life dull. So, in the story, they got married, and soon had two children and lived together happily for a few years. However, Zhinv’s mother, the Empress of Heaven12, was quite angry to find that her daughter had married a simple and poor human and sent soldiers to fetch13 her back. Then Niulang tried to go to heaven to rescue Zhinv but they were separated by the giant river (which is actuallythe Milky Way14) and they could only meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, and that’s why the Qixi Festival falls on this day. (Mat) Wow, it’s quite a romantic story, which makes sense really, because it’s a romantic festival. Now, obviously on Valentine’s Day, couples buy gifts for each other, they go on dates, and I remember when I was a teenager, there was a special Valentine’s Day ritual. If you had a crush on15 someone, but they didn’t know, because you haven’t told them. You bought a romantic Valentine’s card, you wrote a simple message, such as“be my valentine”, but you didn’t sign your name. It was like a secret love letter, a mystery. It was like sending a message to someone saying “someone likes you”, but it’s not signed, so they never knew who. So,