Five great Chinese love legends: Romance across millennia

Tonight, the Milky Way shines its brightest for Qixi Festival, or Chinese Valentine’s Day. It is the night when the Cowherd and Weaver Girl reunite across the stars — a perfect occasion to revisit the stories that define Chinese romance. From Lady Meng Jiang’s tears bringing down the Great Wall to Bai Suzhen flooding Jinshan Temple to save her husband; from Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai transforming into butterflies to stay together forever; to Dong Yong marrying a celestial princess beneath the locust tree — these five legends span millennia, yet they resonate with the same eternal truth: love transcends status, defies life and death, and dissolves the boundaries between heaven and earth. This Qixi, as you gaze at the stars, see not just a myth, but the enduring spirit of a civilization.

Chinese Culturepedia
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