Chinese Valentine's Day is about much more than flowers and chocolates. Known as Qixi, the ancient festival combines romance with legends, prayers and traditional cultural practices that continue to be observed today.

Qixi is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which fell on Aug. 19 this year. The festival is also observed in Singapore, Vietnam and several other Asian countries.

Beijing's Folk Custom Museum held a series of activities on Wednesday under a program titled “Asking for Skills,” highlighting one of Qixi's traditional practices in which women prayed for greater skill and demonstrated their abilities through handicrafts.

“We especially hope that young audiences can understand the meaning of our traditional festivals through interactive and engaging experiences,” said Jia Juan, who works in the museum's Public Education Department.

The museum, located inside Beijing's Dongyue Taoist Temple, has organized Qixi activities for 14 years, attracting around 500 participants on each occasion.

Traditional customs brought to life

Wednesday's program opened with a performance of traditional Chinese music before families took part in activities inspired by old Qixi customs.

One activity involved dyeing fingernails with garden balsam, a natural pigment traditionally linked to beauty and blessings. Another featured bead painting on Song brocade, a prized Chinese silk fabric, with pearls representing completeness and good fortune.

Participants were invited to make sachet-shaped Song brocade pearl paintings, reflecting the traditional concept of “qiqiao,” which emphasizes the pursuit of skill and dexterity.

Wang Xuejie attended the event with her 7-year-old daughter, and together they made “qiaoguo,” a traditional pastry produced by pressing dough into decorative molds.

“We were able to get a general understanding of how, during the Qixi Festival in ancient times, girls and women expressed their aspirations and hopes for their own growth,” Wang said.

A romantic tale written in the stars

Jia said girls and women began practicing qiqiao during the Tang and Song dynasties, which lasted from the seventh to the 13th centuries.

“The history of the Qixi Festival can be traced back to ancient people's worship and study of the stars,” she said.

Qixi traditionally revolves around two central themes: the romantic legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl and the practice of qiqiao.

According to Chinese mythology, Zhinü, the Weaver Girl represented by the star Vega, falls in love with Niulang, the Cowherd represented by Altair. Their forbidden relationship angered the Jade Emperor, who separated the lovers on opposite sides of the Milky Way.

They are said to meet once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when magpies form a bridge across the Milky Way to allow them to reunite.

Jia said references to the Cowherd and Weaver Girl can be traced to the pre-Qin period, before 221 B.C. Customs associated with qiqiao began developing during the Han Dynasty.

Women carried Qixi traditions overseas

Researcher Lynn Wong is working to revive Qixi celebrations in Singapore through Qixi Fest, a multiday event launched in 2023. This year's festival will continue through Aug. 23.

“We're trying to create the childhood memories of this new generation of Singaporeans so that they grow up with the stories that our forefathers grew up with,” Wong said.

Wong said she first became interested in Qixi after realizing during a conversation with a friend about Chinese festivals that she had never heard of it. She subsequently interviewed elderly people about their memories of the festival and documented her findings in a book.

Qixi was brought to Singapore around the 1930s by Chinese women migrants. Many Chinese men had earlier moved there in search of work, but migration patterns later changed. Women, particularly those from Guangdong in southern China, brought with them customs and beliefs, some of which gradually disappeared.

“I feel that in my generation, we lost quite a lot of our roots,” Wong said. “I grew up with things like the Tooth Fairy, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Three Little Pigs,’ but what about the stories that our foremothers grew up listening to?”

A family keeps the tradition alive

Hor Xin Hao, who is of Cantonese descent, is among the small number of people in Singapore who continue to observe Qixi according to traditional practices.

Late on the sixth day of the seventh lunar month, his family sets up a prayer table outside their home facing the night sky. They continue praying past midnight and make offerings to the Seven Maidens, celestial sisters that include the Weaver Girl.

The offerings include incense, flowers, perfume, cosmetics and soap. Hor said the items are traditionally believed to bring beauty and charm after being blessed by the Cowherd and the seven maidens.

“I personally feel that the idea of a Valentine's Day actually reduces the original idea behind the festival into something narrower,” Hor said, describing Qixi as a celebration of traditional values and ancestral heritage.

“It contains the way we look at life from the interaction between us and the universe,” he said.