The Magpie Festival or Qi Xi Festival it always falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month on the Chinese lunar calendar. Today it is oftentimes called Chinese Valentine's Day.

On the seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese lunar calendar, look carefully at the sky and you will, weather permitting, see the Cowherd, a bright star in the constellation Aquila just west of the Milky Way, and the Weaving Maid, the star Vega just east of the Milky Way, appear closer together than at any other time of the year.

The Chinese believe these stars are lovers. A legend tells how the Weaving Maid, the seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor, fell in love with and married a cowherd. However, they were overindulgent in their love and forgot their farming and weaving duties, which angered the Jade Emperor. He exiled and separated them on opposite banks of the Silver River (Milky Way), allowing them to meet each other only once a year on Chi Hsi, or the night of the double seventh or seventh month and seventh day, on a bridge formed by magpies.

The Story of the Cowherd and Celestial Weaving Maiden

The story begins thousands of years ago, there lived a young cowherd. He was an orphan who had taken shelter with his elder brother, until the latter married a shrew, who hounded her brother-in-law out of the house and into the cow tending business. As if his station weren't lowly enough, he had only one cow under his charge. The villagers who scorned him may have changed their minds, however, had they known the cow was a heavenly immortal, sent to earth to atone for some divine transgression.

This bovine fairy godmother empathized with her lonely caretaker, and with her dying breath advised him to save her hide, and then visit the hidden spring where they had passed many an idle day. Doing as he was told, the cowherd discovered seven radiant fairy sisters bathing. Escaping notice, he deftly snatched one of the sister's raiment from the banks of the limpid pool. When the fairies rose to attire themselves, the sister deprived of her garments had no choice but to search for them, upon which the cowherd stepped forth, proffering both her dress and his hand in marriage.

Naturally, the cowherd was both fair of face and clean of limb, so that the fairy, daughter of the Jade Emperor, was inclined to accept, despite his obviously low status. Custom intervened in their favor - he had seen her naked, after all, therefore convention dictated that they be joined in marriage. But their brief idyll ended upon the Jade Emperor's discovery that his daughter was responsible for weaving clouds and rainbows and had failed to return with her sisters. Enraged that she had violated heavenly law by mixing with a mortal, the Emperor sent his wife to fetch her back.

Since she had disobey their parents, the cowherd's wife had no choice but to return, whereupon her husband gave chase through the skies, cloaked in his immortal leather jacket. The Jade Empress, scandalized at his impertinence, removed her silver hairpin and with it scored the heavens, simultaneously blocking the love-struck cowpoke and creating the Milky Way.

Meanwhile, a large flock of magpies had been observing this melodrama, and moved by such passion that they formed a bridge across the starry abyss on which the two could meet. The Empress herself could not ignore such a display of sympathy, and decreed that the literally star-crossed lovers could meet annually on that day, Qi Xi.

The story has been immortalized by a host of classic Chinese writers, most famously by Song Dynasty poet Qin Guan, who wrote:

Among the beautiful clouds,
Over the heavenly river,
Crosses the weaving maiden.
A night of rendezvous,
Across the autumn sky,
Surpasses joy on earth.
Moments of tender love and dream,
So sad to leave the magpie bridge.
Eternal love between us two,
Shall withstand the time apart.

The Brash and the Fair

Another legend is more romantic. It holds that an orphaned cowherd was mistreated by his elder brother and sister-in-law, and that they gave him an old ox and chased him out. The cowherd worked hard, and after only a couple of years he owned a small farm and house. He was lonely, however, with only the company of that faithful old ox.

One day the ox suddenly opened its mouth and talked, telling the cowherd that the heavenly Weaving Maid and her sisters were going to bathe in the Silver River and that he should go there to rob the Weaving Maid of her clothes while she was in the water. In exchange for the return of her clothes, she would become his wife. Surprised, the cowherd willingly followed the ox's instructions and hid himself in the reeds at the river-bank, waiting for the girls to bathe.

The girls did come as foretold. As they were splashing about and having fun, the cowherd rushed out of the reeds and grabbed the Weaving Maid's clothing. In panic, the sisters dashed to their clothes, hurriedly put them on, and ran away. The Weaving Maid, deprived of her clothes, stood on the riverbank and tried to cover herself with her hair as best as possible. The cowherd told her that he would not return her clothes unless she promised to be his wife. After a little hesitation and with a mixture of shyness and eagerness, she agreed to his request and they married.

The Jade Emperor at long last learned of the elopement, and in anger he punished them as described in the first legend. If it rains on the night of the double seventh, the time the two lovers meet on the magpie bridge, women on earth used to lament that "our elder sister is crying again." The raindrops are considered the tears of the Weaving Maid.

To Love and Protect

The double seventh is also an important day for young people. Chi Niang Ma, literally meaning "seven mothers," is the name of the Weaving Maid and her six elder sisters, whom the Chinese believe are protectors of children under 16. A custom begun in the Ching dynasty requires parents, when a child reaches one year of age, to use a red thread to tie old coins under the child's neck, a protective amulet from Chi Niang Ma. In the past, some people have substituted a silver coin or even a gold medal for the old coin. The red thread is replaced with a new one on every double seventh until the child grows up.

A person is considered grown up when he or she reaches 16; and a rite to mark the occasion is performed on the double seventh, the birthday of Chi Niang Ma. This is somewhat confusing, since Chi Niang Ma is a unified name; some claim the birthday is the Weaving Maid's, and some assert it belongs to the oldest sister--one more debating topic for the mortals of China.

In Taiwan, this Chi Niang Ma custom is most prevalent in the Tainan area; on the double seventh, people go to Kai Lung Temple, which is almost 200 years old, and make 16-year-olds perform the ritual passage to adulthood by crawling under the offering table and by circling and passing under, three times, a miniature seven-story pagoda made of bamboo and paper and held up high by their parents.

For the Chinese woman who craves to have a child, double seventh is the best day of the year to beg Chu Sheng Niang Niang, the Goddess of Birth. This merciful goddess could be the Weaving Maid or any of her sisters, or any other goddess. There is no single answer although all that some Chinese women care about is a child in their arms.

Qi Xi Festival Customs and Traditions

Young girls traditionally demonstrate their domestic arts, especially melon carving, on this day and make wishes for a good husband. Another tradition is for young girls to throw a sewing needle into a bowl full of water on the night of Qi Xi as a test of embroidery skills. If the needle floats on top of the water instead of sinking, it is believed to be an indication of the girl's being a skilled embroiderer. Coins tied with a red thread and hung around a child's neck are used as a protective amulet in the tradition of Chi Niang Ma.

Customarily it was believed that a young woman would be more attractive to a suitor if she had talent of one kind or another in addition to being beautiful. In ancient China, needlework was necessary as part of a girl's dowry. On the eve of the double seventh, as the old custom goes, love and reproduction falls. Historically, the double seventh functioned as the Chinese women's day. So many things of joy and tears, praise and lament, hope and yearning fall on the double seventh.

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