Love Cultural: Chinese Qixi Festival and American Valentine’s Day  

 Cultures are various in the world, yet each country’s culture is unique. Obviously, different countries have entirely different cultures. To celebrate culture, people always create many different significant festival holidays. These festival holidays provide an opportunity for people to come together to claim their values, beliefs, and lifeways. Some countries’ cultures, however, share some very similar festivals, but with unique traditions and customs. In this case, comparing the Chinese Qixi Festival and American Valentine’s Day. Two festivals celebrate Romantic love and express love for others, the Chinese Qixi Festival focuses on girls who looking for love, and People pray for love in a married family, while American Valentine’s Day focuses on expressing love to everybody. Even though the significance of love in both two cultures is very similar, the history of origin, traditions, and customs is very different.

The Qixi Festival is on the seventh day of the seventh month in China’s lunar calendar, “In ancient times, the date of Qixi was fixed according to the location of Vega in the sky. It appeared to be its brightest in early autumn, during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hence the setting of the date” (Pan, 2014, para.9). It is also called the Chinese Valentine’s Day. The Qixi Festival is from an ancient fairy legend. It says that a heaven god has seven daughters, they are weaver the cloudy every day. One day the seventh daughter was tired of not changing life and decided to hang out on earth. Then during that time, she fell in love with a cowherd and married him to live an ordinary life on earth. However, it was forbidden for a fairy to marry ordinary people. They are forced to be separated by the haven god. Finally, their consistent love moved heaven and earth, the Queen Mother permitted them to meet each other only on the seventh day of the seventh month every year. That day, the magpies gather to be a bridge, so that the cowherd and the weaver girl can pass the far distance to reunion. The weaver girl and cowherd’s story symbolize a loyal love, which can get a perfect happy ending. In ancient times, people celebrated the Qixi Festival with many customs. For instance, people put the Kongming Lantern to the sky to pray for blessings and make a wish in front of an old tree, and women gathered to plead for skills by threading needles. Pan (2014) showed that the earliest documentation of this festival was about 1600 years ago, the girls learned the skill of needlework and sewing beautiful dresses. Needlework is a main part of agrarian life for girls in ancients:

Needlework became an important aspect of the holiday because it falls in early fall when the weather is becoming cool. Women would need to make warm clothes for the coming cold. At that time, weaving and needlework skills were the criteria by which a girl’s hands and mind were judged, both prerequisites for being a good wife and mother. (Pan as cited in Liu, 2014, para. 11)

It has been a significant festival for most Chinese women. According to Zhao (2018) “Traditionally in ancient China, women celebrated Qixi by worshiping celestials, taking part in rituals and burning paper items as offerings” (para. 3). I think today in China it continually affects women. Since I have memories, my grandmother was very forward to Qixi. It seems very important to her. Like most people, that day in the morning, she woke up earlier and cooked a chicken prepared to worship the weaver girl to pray she could be as dexterous as weaver girls.

There were 3 bowls of rice, 3 bowls of wine, cakes, and fruit on the table towards the sky, and then she burned fake paper money on the earth and burned a small firecracker to the end.  In the afternoon, she brought her granddaughter to the river to take a bath. Moreover, every year that day would rain, and the rainfall in the river symbolized the tears of a weaver girl, which can make us healthy and smarter. “The customs of the Qixi celebration have varied slightly over time, but the theme of appealing for skillfulness has remained unchanged” (Pan, 2014, para.12). Nowadays, more and more younger people commemorate the Qixi Festival, and the activities have also become diverse. Such as the single people would write their wishes on red paper and hang them on the wish tree, hoping can get a good marriage like a weaver girl and cowherd, whatever the distance, a couple working from a different place would meet and enjoying Qixi Festival foods, husband and wife exchanged the gift each other, people even get married on that day. The stores of flowers, chocolate, and jewelry are also very busy on that day. Even though it became a romantic festival like Valentine’s Day, a traditional festival of reunion remains, and the spirit of encouraging people to freely pursue their love has never changed.

Romantic love stories surround history not only in Eastern but Western as well. Valentine’s Day is the most famous and widely known love holiday. As we know, St. Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14 every year, across the United States and people in other places around the world express their love to family and friends on that day. There is no doubt that every special memorized day always with an origin. There are many versions of the history of how Valentine’s Day began. The most famous one is the memorized Saint Valentine’s death and burial. According to Forbes (2015), “In the 200s, in the era of Roman persecution of Christians, a priest named Valentine, was beheaded for refusing to deny his faith” (p.46). Forbes also showed that another legend indicated that “Valentine had performed underground weddings for romantic couples when the Roman emperor had banned them” (2015, p.46). Finally, St. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and was killed. For this reason, his name was associated with love and romance. Initially, people wrote love letters and poems to express their love, but as it spread as times changed, the traditions became diverse. “Among the aristocracy, the day often provided an occasion for giving expensive gifts, including jewelry, and for enjoying extravagant banquets and parties” (Forbes, 2015, p.65). Until today, it was very popular for husbands or boyfriends to buy their partners a piece of expensive jewelry as a Valentine’s gift in America. Over time, Valentine’s Day has become very popular in America, “Greeting cards had become the common accouterment of almost any holiday or life passage.” (Forbes, 2015, p. 70). Forbes also says, “With the addition of dinners, candy, flowers, and other gifts, Valentine’s Day now ranks as the second highest-grossing holiday in the United States” (2015, p. 72). It has become more significant in American families. Today, people in America celebrate the theme of love with many traditional customs but develop more rituals. “They successfully expanded the appeal of valentines from single adults and married couples to family and friends in general, including children” (Forbes, 2015, p 70). Typically, lovers exchange gifts with different meanings, including heart shapes of chocolate, and packing meaning into many kinds of flowers, particularly red roses, a symbol of love hearts, and cupid, families host a family game with the theme of love, children at school hang out Valentine’s greeting cards with handmade decorations for their classmates. Communities and businesses host activities to express self-love and hug others to spread love for others. Forbes (2015) says “Whatever additional activities became associated with the day; a central feature of Valentine’s Day continued to be the custom of exchanging written expressions of affection with loved ones” (p.46).

Although celebrating the Chinese Qixi Festival and America’s Valentine’s Day are very similar today. However, there are also many different traditions between the Chinese Qixi Festival and America’s Valentine’s Day. Chinese Qixi Festival has a deep history and significance in traditional Chinese culture, while American Valentine’s Day was influenced by Western culture. According to Pan (2015), the Chinese Qixi Festival origin from a Chinese traditional festival, following the lunar calendar, mentioned earlier, celebrates the annual meeting of the legendary love store of weaver girl and cowherd.  Zhao (2018) also explains that the traditional festival in China often with some religious rituals, like God worship. The same, during the Qixi festival, people consider a weave girl as the godmother who worships her to get wiser and love. While American Valentine’s Day follows the Gregoria calendar, which is widely celebrated by the Western world. It is from a Christian tradition that memorizes a person named Saint Valentine’s death. Forbes (2015) said that is not exactly material recorded how it begins that, there are many different stories about St. Valentine, and as time goes by, the folk people pushed it toward a special associated with a romantic love day to celebrate it focuses on gift exchange and how to keep their affection for each other. According to Pan (2014), the Chinese Qixi Festival Valentine’s Day focuses on girls, they get together and learn more skills from each other, and contribute to their families. They hope that they will be like a weaver girl, hardworking and wise, break through the shackles, and bravely pursue love. Therefore, most of the Qixi Festival customs might be towards good wishes. Nowadays, people pray wishes on many activities, for example, people might eat Qixi festival food and write down a wish on the wish tree to bless them would find a Mr. Right and a happy marriage. On American Valentine’s Day, people might hang on more decorations associated with which symbolize love. Forbes (2015) shows that People who used the symbolism of Valentine’s Day are red hearts, which are from the Christian image of the Sacred Heart, representing the Virgin Mary’s ‘Immaculate Heart. Perhaps that’s why the love of Valentine’s Day is associated with feelings and affection. American Valentine’s Day is not only expressing love between lovers and couples but also every family member and friend. Forbes (2015) also says whatever the years roll by, exchanging gifts of customs has never changed. All in all, I think even though there are many different cultural origins, traditions, calendar dates, and religions, both offer opportunities to celebrate love and affection to our important people. No matter how people have different cultural backgrounds between Chinese Qixi Valentine’s Day and American Valentine’s Day, I believe people would like to create an eternal theme of love and happy memorable moments are the same.

Thus, the Chinese Qixi Festival and American Valentine’s Day have many different cultures to celebrate similar events. Both are associated with how to celebrate romantic love. However, The Chinese Qixi Festival holiday has traditional customs associated with loyal love, which has existed for about two thousand years, the main custom has a long history. People celebrate Qixi with religious rituals, using traditional customs to pray about how to get a happy marriage. American Valentine’s Day is rooted in Christianity and Saints, it is a holiday primarily to express romantic love. Couples dating, people exchanging gifts, and even broadening the love with family and friends as well. People celebrate Love Day by decorating it with pink and heart-shaped everywhere. I think that is the charm of Eastern culture and Western culture. The Chinese Qixi Festival reflects the view of marriage in China culture, and American Valentine’s Day is how to keep affection and relationship rituals. Whatever, each love culture reminds us to cherish the love around us and offers a wonderful opportunity to celebrate love with the one who is significant in our life.

References

Xiaoqiao, P. (2014, Aug 14). Legendary love: Qixi festival, a historic Chinese holiday, struggles to stay true to its ancient roots. Beijing Review, Retrieved from http://168.156.198.98:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/legendary-love-qixi-festival-historic-chinese/docview/1553400134/se-2

Zhao, C. (2018, Sep 07). Qixi festival: An education on finding love in modern China. Newsweek, 171 Retrieved from http://168.156.198.98:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/qixi-festival-education-on-finding-love-modern/docview/2099091790/se-2

Forbes, B. D. (2015). America’s favorite holidays: Candid histories ([Enhanced Credo edition]). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520960442