What is the relevance of a particular day to a love celebration? As we all know, February 14 is celebrated as Valentine's Day—the day of love. Is Valentine's Day necessary? Is there any need of any specific day to fall in love or to show our true love? Love comes from the heart; so it doesn't require any specific day, special time or anything else! At the moment, it looks good that we celebrate Valentine's Day in the name of Saint Valentine; but, what is the relevance of celebrating Valentine's Week? Seriously! If Saint Valentine somehow knew that now-a-days Valentine's Day is being celebrated along with Valentine Week, perhaps he would have howled and said, "What is the use of these? Why?"
Is Valentine's Day celebrated on the same day in all parts of the world? Is February 14 Valentine's Day for every part of the world? Suddenly the question arises in my mind. A researchable answer it could be. Searched lots of books, article—but I couldn't find the proper information. At last Wikipedia gives me the answer.
It's not. Valentine's Day is not celebrated on the same day in all parts of the world. There is only a single county where the day of love is not celebrated on February 14. Which country? It's China, where Valentine's Day is not celebrated on February 14. On the contrary, in China, the day of love has been celebrated on another day.
'Qiqiao!' Yes, 'Qiqiao' is celebrated as the day of love in China. It is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th month on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Earlier, 'Qiqiao' was also known as 'Qixi'.
People of the country celebrated the very day of love with the memory of two lovers—Zhinu and Niulang—who were the weaver girl and the cowherd respectively. The love tale of the cowherd and the weaver girl has been celebrated as the 'Qiqiao' (earlier known as 'Qixi') for 2600 years.
Behind 'Qiqiao', there is a love tale—the story of Zhinu, the weaver girl and Niulang, the cowherd. Niulang was an orphan, living with his brother and sister-in-law. His sister-in-law often seems to abuse him. They torture him and sometimes kick him out of the house and left him empty—giving only an old cow. Suddenly, one day, the old cow spoke to him that a fairy will come and she will be the heavenly weaver. And said if the fairy fails to go back to heaven before the very next morning then she will stay here. Similar happened as the cow said, Niulang saw the beautiful fairy—he was just speechless and fell in love with her and after some days they got married. But somehow the emperor, i.e., the Lord of heaven, came to know about all this and was so furious; so sent the minions to escort the heavenly weaver fairy back to heaven. Niulang was sad and couldn't believe all these so decided to chase after them. The 'Queen Mother' blocked Niulang's way. After all, the bond of love between Niulang and Zhinu moved the magpie and they built a bridge of magpies. The emperor of heaven was somehow moved by the sight—their love. He allowed them to meet on the 'Magpie Bridge'—once a year—on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Thus, people of China have been celebrating the day of love on another day—not on February 14.
