Qixi Festival, this festival originated in the Han Dynasty. In the "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes" by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there is a record that "Han women often threaded seven-hole needles in the Kaijin Tower on July 7, and everyone was used to it." This is the earliest record of begging for skills we have seen in ancient documents. In the later Tang and Song Dynasty poems, women's begging for skills was also mentioned repeatedly. Wang Jian of the Tang Dynasty wrote in a poem that "the stars are glittering, and the palace maids are busy begging for skills on the Qixi Festival." According to "Kaiyuan Tianbao Yishi": Emperor Taizong of Tang and his concubines had a night banquet in the Qing Palace on the Qixi Festival, and the palace maids begged for skills on their own. This custom has also been enduring among the people and has been passed down from generation to generation.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Qiqiao Festival on the Qixi Festival was quite grand. There was even a market in the capital city that specialized in selling Qiqiao items, which was called the Qiqiao Market. The "Drunkard Talks" compiled by Luo Ye and Jin Yingzhi of the Song Dynasty said: "On the Qixi Festival, Qiqiao items were bought and sold in front of Panlou. From the first day of July, the carriages and horses were blocked. Three days before the Qixi Festival, the carriages and horses could not pass. They were blocked one after another and could not get out. They dispersed at night." Here, from the grand scene of buying Qiqiao items in the Qiqiao Market, we can infer the lively scene of the Qiqiao Festival on the Qixi Festival at that time. People started to buy Qiqiao items on the first day of July. The Qiqiao Market was crowded with people. When it was close to the Qixi Festival, the Qiqiao Market was simply a sea of ​​people. The carriages and horses were difficult to pass. Looking at its customs, it seemed to be no less than the grandest festival-the Spring Festival, which shows that the Qiqiao Festival was one of the most favorite festivals of the ancients.

The Chinese Valentine's Day has always been connected with the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, which is a very beautiful love story that has been passed down through the ages and has become one of the four major folk love legends in my country.

According to legend, a long time ago, there was a smart and honest young man in Niujiazhuang, west of Nanyang City. His parents died early, so he had to live with his brother and sister-in-law. His sister-in-law, Ma, was cruel and often abused him and forced him to do a lot of work. One autumn, his sister-in-law forced him to herd cattle. She gave him nine cows, but told him to wait until he had ten cows before he could go home. Niulang had no choice but to drive the cattle out of the village.

The cowherd drove the cows into the mountains alone. On the mountain with deep grass and dense forests, he sat under a tree and felt sad, not knowing when he could drive the ten cows back home. At this time, an old man with white hair and beard appeared in front of him and asked him why he was sad. After learning about his experience, he smiled and said to him, "Don't be sad. There is an old sick cow in Funiu Mountain. You go and feed it well. When the old cow recovers, you can drive it back home.

The cowherd climbed over mountains and walked a long way, and finally found the sick old cow. He saw that the old cow was very sick, so he went to get bundles of grass for the old cow and fed it for three days. When the old cow was full, it raised its head and told him that it was originally a gray cow immortal in the sky, but was demoted from the sky because it violated the rules of heaven, broke its leg and could not move. Its injury needed to be washed with dew from hundreds of flowers for a month to heal. The cowherd was not afraid of hard work and took care of the old cow carefully for a month. During the day, he collected flowers and collected dew to heal the old cow's injury, and at night he snuggled up to the old cow to sleep. After the old cow recovered, the cowherd happily drove the ten cows back home.

After returning home, his sister-in-law was still mean to him and tried to harm him several times, but the old cow managed to save her every time. Finally, his sister-in-law became angry and drove Cowherd out of the house. Cowherd only wanted the old cow to stay with him.

One day, the Weaver Girl from heaven came down to earth with other fairies to play and bathe in the river. With the help of the old cow, the Cowherd met the Weaver Girl, and they fell in love with each other. Later, the Weaver Girl secretly came down to earth and became the wife of the Cowherd. The Weaver Girl also distributed the silkworms she brought from heaven to everyone, and taught everyone how to raise silkworms, reel silk, and weave shiny and bright silk.

After the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl got married, they worked as farmers and wove, and they were deeply in love. They had two children, a boy and a girl, and lived a happy life. But the good times didn't last long. The Emperor of Heaven soon found out about it, and the Queen Mother came down to earth and forcibly took the Weaver Girl back to heaven, separating the loving couple.

The cowherd had no way to go to heaven, but the old cow told him that after the cowherd died, he could make shoes out of its hide and wear them to go to heaven. The cowherd did as the old cow said, put on the shoes made of cowhide, took his children with him, and rode the clouds to the sky to chase the Weaver Girl. When they were about to catch up, the Queen Mother took off her golden hairpin and waved it, and a turbulent river appeared. The cowherd and the Weaver Girl were separated on both sides and could only cry and shed tears. Their loyal love moved the magpies, and thousands of magpies flew over and built a magpie bridge for the cowherd and the Weaver Girl to meet on the magpie bridge. The Queen Mother had no choice but to allow the two to meet on the magpie bridge on July 7 every year.

Later, every year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl meet on the Magpie Bridge, the girls would come out under the moon and look up at the starry sky, looking for the Altair and the Weaver Girl on both sides of the Milky Way, hoping to see their annual meeting, begging God to make them as dexterous as the Weaver Girl, and praying for a happy and satisfying marriage. This is how the Chinese Valentine's Day was formed.