Beijing museum invites visitors to experience Qixi traditions

The Beijing Folklore Museum held a Qixi Festival celebration on Aug 19, offering visitors an immersive experience of traditional customs, intangible cultural heritage, poetry and Chinese classical music.

Themed "Celebrating Qixi with Traditional Craftsmanship", the event brought together hands-on activities and cultural performances to showcase the customs and traditions associated with Qixi, also known as Chinese Valentine's Day.

The event was free to the public and featured three main sections: reserved handicraft workshops, folk-custom interactive activities and traditional music performances.

The handicraft workshops offered 200 sets of materials for each activity, allowing visitors to make qiaoguo, traditional pastries associated with Qixi, create pearl paintings using Song (960-1279) brocade, and try traditional nail dyeing with balsam flowers.

At the qiaoguo workshop, visitors shaped the pastries into forms such as gourds and lotus seed pods, gaining a hands-on glimpse into how people traditionally celebrated the festival.

In another workshop, participants drew inspiration from a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) embroidered perfume pouch from the museum's collection, combining delicate pearls with elegant Song brocade to create their own decorative artworks.

The nail-dyeing activity re-created an old Qixi custom in which women used freshly prepared flower juice to color their fingernails, allowing visitors to experience the festival's traditional aesthetics.

The folk-custom area offered visitors a chance to try traditional Qixi games. Participants threaded colorful strands through needles in a re-creation of the ancient "pleading for ingenuity" ritual, in which women prayed for dexterity and skill.

Another activity invited visitors to float needles on water, a traditional Qixi practice used to test one's needlework skills. Participants also explored the festival's cultural traditions through poetry, with those who correctly answered two Qixi-related verses receiving commemorative stamps.

Traditional music performances added an elegant touch to the celebration. Musicians performed classical pieces, accompanying visitors as they explored the festival activities.

Qixi, traditionally celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, is rooted in the legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl and has evolved into a festival associated with love, craftsmanship and wishes for happiness and ingenuity.

Through interactive activities combining folk customs, traditional crafts and music, the Beijing Folklore Museum sought to offer visitors a contemporary way to experience and appreciate China's long-standing cultural traditions.