China Valentine's Day, also known as Georgie's Day, Qi Jie's Day and Georgie's Day, is a traditional folk festival in China. Originated from the worship of stars on Qixi Festival, it is Seven Sisters's birthday in the traditional sense. Seven Sisters was worshipped on July 7th, so it was named Tanabata. After historical development, Tanabata has been endowed with the beautiful love legend of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl", making it a festival symbolizing love. It is considered as the most romantic traditional festival in China, and it has the cultural meaning of "Valentine's Day in China" in contemporary times.
The Origin Time of Valentine's Day in China
China Valentine's Day, also known as Begging for Clevership Festival, originated in the Han Dynasty. Ge Hong's Miscellaneous Notes on Xijing in the Eastern Jin Dynasty records that "the women of Han Dynasty often wear seven holes in the building on July 7, and everyone is there". Qiaojie is not to commemorate the love of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, but to commemorate the Weaver Girl, also known as "Seven Sisters" among the people. Begging for Qiao Festival is a festival for women, and Weaver Girl is regarded as the goddess of textile. On the night of the seventh day of July, secular women begged her for wisdom and skills, and they would inevitably ask for a happy marriage. In different ages, the ways of seeking skills vary from place to place. The most famous thing is to seek skills by threading needles, that is, whoever is fast in threading needles will be "accurate" and those who are slow will be called "accurate". People who lose it will give prepared gifts to those who get it. Skilled spider silk is to put a little spider in a box, and how clever the web is. The popular needle-throwing experiment in Ming and Qing dynasties refers to putting sewing needles into a basin and judging whether they are "clever" by the shape of the needle shadow at the bottom of the basin.
The Origin of Valentine's Day in China
Tanabata is also a phenomenon of digital worship. In ancient times, the people listed the first day of the first month, the third day of March, the fifth day of May, the seventh day of July, and the ninth day of September, plus a multiple of the second and third days of February, as an auspicious day. "Seven" is the number of beads in each column of the abacus, which is romantic and rigorous, giving people a mysterious aesthetic feeling. "Seven" is homophonic with "wife", so Qixi has largely become a festival related to women.