| Chinese Valentine's Day is on the Seventh Day of the | | | | Some of the many traditions include Chinese girls |
| Seventh Month on the Chinese calendar, which falls on | | | | preparing fruits, melons, and incense as offerings to Zhi |
| August 4th this year. Legend has it that the seventh | | | | Nu, the weaving maiden, praying to acquire high skills in |
| daughter of the Emperor of Heaven, a weaving maid, | | | | needlecraft, as well as hoping to find satisfactory |
| fell in love and married a cowherd. They were so | | | | husbands. |
| much in love that they forgot everything else in their | | | | Girls place sewing needles on water. If the needle |
| lives and didn't complete their farming and weaving | | | | doesn't sink, it's a sign of the girl's maturity and |
| duties, which angered the Jade Emperor. He exiled | | | | intelligence and she is ready and eligible to find a |
| them to opposite banks of the Silver River (Milky | | | | husband. |
| Way), and only allows them to meet each other once | | | | People in some Chinese provinces believe that |
| a year on the night of the seventh day of the seventh | | | | decorating the horns of oxen with flowers will save |
| month. | | | | them from catastrophe. Another tradition is for women |
| This legend has been handed down for nearly two | | | | to wash their hair to make it look fresh and shining. |
| millennia. The Chinese people believe that the star, | | | | On Chinese Valentine's Day, young lovers go to the |
| Vega, east of the Milky Way, is Zhi Nu, and that Altair, | | | | temple of the Matchmaker and pray for their love and |
| on the western side of the Milky Way is Niu Lang | | | | happiness, and their possible marriage in China. |
| waiting for his wife. | | | | In the evening, people sit outside to observe the stars. |
| The seventh day of the seventh lunar month is the | | | | On this night, Vega and Altair are closer together than |
| only Chinese festival devoted to love in the lunar | | | | at any other time of year. Chinese grannies say that if |
| calendar. Chinese Valentine's Day traditions abound | | | | you stand under a grapevine, you can probably |
| and this special day is celebrated differently depending | | | | overhear what Zhi Nu and Niu Lang are saying to one |
| on the Chinese province. | | | | another. |