Timeless Love

Chinese youth dress up as Niulang and Zhinu to celebrate the Qixi Festival.

American Sean Naismith intends to propose to his girlfriend on August 23. "My girlfriend is Chinese and I wanted to do it on that special day, which is also a traditional festival known as Qixi or Chinese Valentine's Day," the 28-year-old Naismith says.

Naismith is just one of an increasing number of foreigners and younger Chinese who are turning or returning to the festival to show their love for their partners.

The Chinese Qixi Festival, or the Seventh Night Festival, falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. This year, it is on Thursday, August 23.

His girlfriend told him the festival is based on a tragic love tale: a Chinese couple, Niulang (cowherd) and Zhinu (fairy weaver girl), who were separated by Wangmu (the supreme goddess of heaven) after she became angry that a fairy had married a mortal. The lovers could only meet once a year on a bridge formed by magpies that took pity on the two.

Most Chinese will remember the tale as children. If it rains heavily on the evening of Qixi, some elderly Chinese will say it is Zhinu crying on that day as she met her husband Niulang on the Milky Way.

Girls dressed in hanfu gather together to practice and show off their needlework.

The festival can be traced back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). Historical records from the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) also mention the festival, while records from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) describe a grand evening banquet linked to the event.

By the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties, there were numerous references to Qixi in literary circles.