Does Tanabata have any special significance?

In the first few years of reform and opening up, a festival in Yi Xi, with the sea breeze blowing all over the streets of our country, also blew into the hearts of young people. On February 14, young couples exchange gifts such as flowers and chocolates to express their love and praise their love; In memory of a monk named Valentine, this day is Valentine's Day, which is called "Valentine's Day" in Chinese.

A few years later, another Valentine's Day quietly appeared among people, which is the traditional festival in China-Qixi. This is an unpopular traditional festival, so cold that people don't even know how it has continued to this day.

As we know, every festival has certain customs: for example, westerners get together with relatives and friends, decorate the Christmas tree and play Santa Claus at Christmas. China people also want to get together with relatives and friends, set off firecrackers and eat jiaozi during the Spring Festival. Eat yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first month; Eat moon cakes on August 15; Eat zongzi on Dragon Boat Festival. . . So what to eat on Tanabata? I wonder what traditional activities are there on Tanabata? I don't know yet ~ ~ According to my online search, there are sporadic temple fairs on Tanabata, but no one I know has been there. These sporadic temple fairs neither exclude lovers nor have much to do with it.

If Tanabata is a traditional festival, it should be the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl that keeps it going. There is a legend or allusion behind every festival, and Valentine's Day in the West is no exception. Legend has it that in Rome in the third century A.D., a king forbade people to get married in order to ensure the source of soldiers. Weddings in the west are presided over by monks. In the capital of Rome, a respected monk secretly married a couple despite the king's ban. This exciting news soon spread in Rome, unfortunately, it also reached the ears of the king. The king put the monk in prison and finally tortured him to death. The day when the friar was killed was February 270 AD 14.

More than a thousand years have passed, and the king has already gone to hell. "People will never remember his staff and sword again", but people will always remember the monk who dared to fight against power. His name is Valentane, and February 14 was Valentine's Day, which gradually became today's Valentine's Day.

Let's look at the story of Valentine's Day in China. Where is our Valentane? Open our history books, who is Valentane of China? Who has fought for love and power, even at the cost of his life? I think there is, but people don't sympathize with him like the Romans, but forget him. It is conceivable that if Valentane's story happened in ancient China, who would praise him according to our traditional ideas? Who built a monument for him? Didn't the people who got his help kneel and kowtow to the king? He is more likely to be regarded as a rebel. He died alone, leaving his grave full of weeds and disappearing into the long river of history. Who will remember him? We will only remember the wise King SHEN WOO, who is omnipotent and admired and praised by generations. Of course, we can't have our own Valentine's Day.

Shen Yue (A.D. 44 1-5 13), a scholar in the Southern Dynasties, once wrote a poem, "Weaver Maid offers morning glory". It is also more than 1000 years. Which generation regards Tanabata as Valentine's Day? Which generation of China people take the pursuit of love and personal happiness for granted? /kloc-For more than 0/000 years, there has been no custom of exchanging gifts between lovers and no tradition of expressing love in China on Valentine's Day. Even those sporadic temple fairs are quite different from the western Valentine's Day customs. Temple fairs are not marriage parties and have little to do with lovers. Tanabata is Tanabata. There is a legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, but there is no reality of Valentine's Day. Why is Valentine's Day not called "Valentine's Day" but translated as "Valentine's Day"? It's simple, because that's what couples celebrate ~

Since Qixi has not been Valentine's Day since ancient times, and no lovers regard it as their own festival, why should the custom of Western Valentine's Day be mechanically applied to Valentine's Day in China in recent years? I don't know who transformed Tanabata into the so-called Valentine's Day, and I don't want to guess if people have ulterior motives. Rome produced an immortal monk, but China, an ancient country with splendid culture and civilization for thousands of years, did not brew a Valentine's Day in China. Western Valentine's Day embodies the spirit of not fearing power, praising love and pursuing happiness. It reflects the firm and just morality of the Roman people. More than a thousand years later, no one remembers the birthday of the great king, but the story of the Valentine brothers has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a festival for people who pursue love and happiness. Why didn't China?

Should we think about it, do our ancestors and traditions respect love? Have you really pursued happiness? China's Valentane, does he really exist? What can he do? What happened to him? Did the people who got his help thank him? Did he really leave a piece of paper and a grave?

Besides imitating others, what can we do to turn Qixi, which was not originally Valentine's Day, into Valentane Festival?

Attachment: Legend of Qixi Festival

Legend has it that there was a cowherd named Linger in ancient times, who was riddled with bad karma. One day, at the instigation of "Grey Bull and Big Fairy", he went to the tea bean stall to spy on the fairy taking a bath. One of them is called Weaver Girl. She is very beautiful, an absolute angel, with a face and a devil figure. Linger is a young man who has just developed. At that time, there was no surveying and mapping website, and there was no education on his advanced deeds such as "sit-in". Can he not be tempted? I fell in love with Vega after only one look. The Weaver Girl is a big girl in The Seeds of Love, and she fell in love with the handsome boy Linger at first sight. She didn't dislike that he was a poor cowherd. It would be nice if they exchanged favors.

After the couple got married, they were kind and loving, envied by everyone in the village, and gave birth to twins. "people are not as good as the sky, and flowers are not as red as the sky." On July 7th, the poor third year, disaster fell from the sky! There is a bully's wife named Queen Mother in the sky. On this day, the Queen Mother suddenly came down to earth and kidnapped the Weaver Girl and fled to the sky. Ji Yan shine with two children to catch up all the way. The heavenly queen let the sorcery draw a galaxy, which blocked Linger's three sons. Since then, a good family of four has been separated by the queen mother for no reason. Knowing that his wife had done such a wicked thing, the bully Jade Emperor decided to invite magpies to cross the bridge on July 7th every year for the family reunion of Cowherd and Weaver Girl.

The timeliness of Qixi stories and customs shows that it was originally an autumn festival, and the significance of Qixi stories is only the change of seasons and the news of beginning of autumn. Although there are sentimental love stories, Tanabata has nothing to do with love at first. Tanabata, as the first festival in autumn, has opened the curtain of autumn, and autumn drama is always a sad tragedy. Autumn wind rises, prosperity falls, and everything is depressed, which makes people sad. Therefore, Tanabata is not so much a lover's festival as an unnatural day. It is better to say that all lovers shall have Jill, but an emotional parting day since ancient times. Tanabata is not the season of love. Therefore, in the concept of the ancients, Tanabata is not an auspicious day for marriage, and the love of the cowherd and the weaver girl does not represent the full moon. There is an entry in A Japanese Book, a short divination book unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province, which takes Cowherd and Weaver Girl as the narrative object. An article said: "It is unlucky to choose a wife if you are ugly. Five applications, self-sufficiency, pulling cattle and taking weaver girls, failing, three abandonment. " Another said, "Wu Shen, Ji You, La Niu got the Weaver Girl but failed. Under the age of three, abandon it and die. " It can be seen that in the eyes of the ancients, the Qixi story was originally a sinister "sign" for love and marriage, and it could not be drawn. ;

At present, China people speculate on the concept of Valentine's Day on Qixi, one of the reasons is to compete with Western Valentine's Day, which can be described as well-intentioned. However, regarding Tanabata as Valentine's Day can be described as forgetting one's ancestors. In response to external shocks, the local consciousness "revived" the tradition, but it had to be reinterpreted with reference to foreign cultures, thus making "tradition" a poor imitation of foreign cultures. In fact, China has its own Valentine's Day, just like Valentine's Day in the west, not in autumn, but in spring. The Spring Festival in ancient times included the vernal equinox, the Flower Dynasty, the Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Shangsi. They are all love festivals with swaying amorous feelings, not to mention the boundless romantic feelings revealed in the poems sung in spring since ancient times. Those passionate talents and beauties are almost all in Tomb-Sweeping Day. In the final analysis, the spring when everything is in full bloom is the season of love.