Zhi Nu – SJB Teaching

August 20, 2015September 7, 2017

Qi Xi Festival

The QiXi festival is known by several other names, including the Double Seventh Festival, Qiqiao, Chinese Valentine and the Festival of Young Girls. It is celebrated on the 7^th day of the 7^th lunar month, which this year is today, 20^th August 2015.

It celebrates the legend of Niu Lang and Zhi Nu, and for this reason it has come to be associated with love and romance.

Traditionally the festival was a time when young girls would pray for good skills in needlework which would help them to find a good husband. They have various sewing competitions, such as making things and threading needles as quickly as possible by moonlight or candlelight.

One custom is to drop a needle into water. If it floats the girl is already highly skilled at needlework; if it sinks she needs more practice. Another is for 7 close female friends to make dumplings together. They place a needle, a copper coin and a date into three of the dumplings and then eat them. Whoever finds the needle with be blessed with good needlework skills. The girl who finds the coin will be wealthy, and the one who finds the date will have an early marriage.

In some parts of China, children would hang flowers from the horns of oxen to celebrate the old ox in the legend.

Today the festival is heavily influenced by western traditions and so it is celebrated in the same way as St Valentine’s Day, with flowers and chocolates being exchanged.

Related post: Chinese New Year

August 12, 2015September 7, 2017

The legend of Niu Lang and Zhi Nu

Long, long ago there lived a poor cowherd, named Niu lang. He had no parents and so lived with his older brother and sister-in-law who treated him very badly, until one day they drove him from the house completely.

As he was sitting alone and wondering what to do an old man came by and told him of a sick ox which needed tending. Niu Lang travelled far and wide and over mountains until he came upon the ox. He fed it and looked after it for a whole month until it was healthy again. The ox then began talking to Niu Lang, and said that he wasn’t really and ox, but a god who had been banished from heaven.

In the meantime Zhi Nu, the daughter of a goddess, escaped from heaven where she felt life was boring, and came to earth seeking new adventures. With the help of the ox, Niu Lang and Zhi Nu met and fell in love. They married and had two children, and lived a very happy life together, until one day the King of the Heavens discovered what had happened and ordered Zhi Nu back to heaven.

Niu Lang pined without her, but the ox had a solution. He ordered Niu Lang to kill him and wear his hide as this would enable him to get to heaven to find Zhi Nu again. Crying, Niu Lang did this and took the two children to heaven. Just as he was about to reach Zhi Nu, the Queen of the Heavens appeared, and taking a silver clip from her hair she scratched the sky to form a deep and wide river between the two lovers, separating them forever.

But the story didn’t end there, because all of the magpies on earth took pity on them and they flew to heaven and created a bridge across the river so that the two lovers could meet again. On seeing this, the goddess relented and permitted the couple to meet once a year, on the 7^th day of the 7^th month.

This legend is now celebrated as the Chinese Qi Xi festival on the 7^th day of the 7^th lunar month.

As with many legends, they are inspired by the skies. The river that separates the lovers is the Milky Way, and the couple are represented by the stars Altair (Niu Lang) and Vega (Zhi Nu) which appear on either side of the Milky Way. Two smaller stars close to Altair were said to be their children.