Sweet Tanabata Festival

Qixi Festival, a traditional Chinese festival, also known as Qiqiao Festival, Qijie Festival, daughter's day, Qiqiao Festival, Qiniang Festival, Qixi Festival, niuniupo day, Qixi Festival, etc., is a traditional folk festival in China. Derived from the worship of stars, Tanabata Festival is the birthday of seven sisters in the traditional sense. Because the worship of "Seven Sisters" is held on July 7th, it is named "Tanabata". The traditional customs of Tanabata are to worship the seventh sister, pray for blessings and wishes, beg for skillful skills, sit and watch the morning glory Vega, pray for marriage, and store water on Tanabata. Through historical development, Tanabata has been endowed with the beautiful love legend of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl", making it a festival symbolizing love, which is considered to be a romantic traditional festival in China, and has produced the cultural meaning of "Chinese Valentine's Day" in contemporary times.

The Tanabata Festival is not only a festival to worship the seventh sister, but also a festival of love. It is a comprehensive festival with women as the main body, with the folk legend of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" as the carrier, with praying, begging and love as the theme. The "Cowherd and Weaver Girl" of the Chinese Valentine's day comes from people's worship of natural phenomena. In ancient times, people corresponded the astronomical star regions with geographical regions. This correspondence is called "sub star" in astronomy and "sub field" in geography. It is said that every year on the seventh day of July, the Cowherd and the weaver girl will meet at the magpie bridge in the sky.

The Tanabata Festival began in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty. In ancient times, Tanabata Festival was the exclusive festival for beautiful women. Among the many folk customs of Tanabata, some gradually disappeared, but a considerable part of it has been continued by people. The Tanabata Festival originated in China, and it is also celebrated in some Asian countries affected by Chinese culture, such as Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam and so on. On May 20, 2006, the Tanabata Festival was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list by the State Council of the people's Republic of China.