Today is the Qixi Festival (also known as the Qiqiao Festival) in China. It celebrates the annual meeting of Zhinü and Niulang in Chinese mythology. A celebration of romantic love, the festival is often described as the traditional Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day. The festival is derived from Chinese mythology: people celebrate the romantic legend of two lovers, Zhinü and Niulang, who were the weaver girl and the cowherd, respectively. The tale of The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has been celebrated in the Qixi Festival since the Han dynasty.
The popular tale is a love story between Zhinü, the weaver girl, symbolized by the star Vega and Niulang, the cowherd, symbolized by the star Altair. Niulang was often abused by his sister-in-law. They eventually kicked him out of the house, and gave him nothing but an old cow. One day, the old cow suddenly spoke out, telling Niulang that there would be fairies bathing in the spring nearby that night. The fairy would stay there if she failed to go back to heaven before morning. In accordance with what the old cow said, Niulang saw those beautiful fairies in the spring, and fell in love with one of the beautiful fairies who was the heavenly weaver. In order to make her stay, he took her clothes that helped her to go back to heaven; this made her an ordinary earth woman without any power. Then they got married and had two children. The Emperor of Heaven, lit. ’The Jade Emperor’ found out about this and was furious, so he sent minions to escort the heavenly weaver back to heaven. Niulang was heartbroken. The old cow suddenly spoke out again, telling Niulang he could take his skin to make it into a flying coat to chase after them; and Niulang did. However, the Queen Mother of the West drew a Silver River (The Milky Way) in the sky and blocked his way. Meanwhile, the love between Niulang and the weaver moved the magpie, and so they built a bridge of magpies over the Silver River for them to meet. The Emperor of Heaven was also moved by the sight, and allowed this couple to meet on the Magpie Bridge. once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. That was the origin of the Qixi Festival.
‘Just take the stairs’, they said.
for a friend…
Today is the birthday, in 1862, of Claude Debussy, one of the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxcHoICbJlM
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