China is celebrating the Qixi pageant – its model of Valentine’s Day – together with different international locations and territories in Asia like Taiwan and Singapore on Thursday.
The standard vacation is well known on the seventh day of the seventh month of the 12 months on the lunar calendar, and is known as the double seventh.
The Google Doodle on Thursday, 4 August, celebrates the normal vacation that’s noticed in some components of Asia, with the doodle seen within the UK, Germany and Taiwan.
On Qixi, {couples} and singles alternate presents akin to roses and sweets with their romantic pursuits.
The pageant is predicated on an historical fable relationship again to the Han dynasty about an oxherd boy named Niulang, or Altair, and the fairy Zhinu, also referred to as Vega. They’re believed to have met within the sky on the double seventh.
In line with legend, the oxherd and the fairy fell in love, following which Zhinu determined to remain on Earth with out permission from her household within the heavens. She turned a weaver woman to outlive on earth, and the lovers had two youngsters.
Zhinu’s mom and the queen of the heavens, upset by her daughter’s actions, pressured her to return. Niulang and his youngsters flew into the skies to save lots of his spouse however have been exiled again to Earth by the queen, based on the romantic legend.
The queen used a hairpin to create a river between the Earth and the heavens, thereby separating her daughter from her household.
The household plunged into despair, and this distress radiated all through the universe. Following this, the queen relented, the legend says. Sensing her daughter’s ache, the queen allowed her to fulfill her household over the river on the double seventh by way of a bridge of magpies.
At the moment, Qixi has many different names, together with the Double Seventh pageant, the Evening of the Sevens and the Magpie pageant.
“Older traditions used to incorporate demonstrations of crafting abilities, worship providers dedicated to Zhinü and flower-hanging ceremonies honoring oxen,” Google mentioned in its description of the doodle. “These traditions have been recognised much less by youthful generations, preferring to rejoice in easier methods.”
