Patch Blog: Love is in the Air at the Huntington Library

On the seventh day of the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar, romance fills the air as the cowherd and weaving maiden celebrate their annual tryst through the star-laden heavens. Today, I am going to introduce you to Chinese Valentine's Day, which is called "Qi Xi - 7th day of the 7th moon".

The 's Verdant Mist Scholar's Society presented "Qi Xi" - Fairytale Under the Stars on Saturday, August 6, 2011 which is also the 7th day of the 7th moon of the Lunar Calendar - "Qi Xi".

Most people in Southern California are familiar with two Chinese Holidays, the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Chinese New Year, because we have been celebrating them annually for quite awhile. However there are other fascinating holidays throughout the year that not many people know much about, for example Qi Xi (the Chinese Valentine's Day), Duan-Wu (the Dragon Boat Festival), Qing Ming Festival (Tomb Sweeping), etc... Because these holidays are not celebrated in the States, even the names feel strange to most of us.

All holidays have their own stories; even the story of our famous Chinese New Year has many versions. Do you know that Guo Nian in Chinese means "passing year"? What is Nian? Well Nian means “year,” but Nian was also a monster who came from out of the deepest waters at the end of the year to have a big feast on dry land.  So annually people in the nearby villages would hide from it. Not being eaten by the Nian, they would come out to celebrate a new beginning, having survived for another year. So Guo Nian (passing year) can mean survival from being eaten by a hungry monster.

The Mid-Autumn Festival has the most varied and fascinating stories among all the legends. The moon cake, which we all love to eat, symbolizes the full moon and the goddess Chang-e who once lived on Earth. After taking her husband's longevity potion, the beautiful Empress rose to the moon, where she lives with the rabbit who makes the elixir of life for the immortals. Each year people taste the moon cakes and fantasize about the beautiful Shang-er dancing in the moon forever, while her cruel husband was left to die on earth.

How many people have heard those stories? Are they fascinating? Today, I am going to introduce you to Chinese Valentine's Day, the famous Qi Xi story of the Cowherd and Weaving Maiden. 

According to legend, the Emperor of Heaven had a beautiful daughter well skilled in the art of weaving. One day she and her six sisters descended to earth to bathe in a stream near a green pasture. A cowherd happened to see them and became entranced with the beauty of the weaving maiden. He snatched away her clothes and took them home with him, thus preventing the weaving maiden from leaving earth to return to the sky. When the celestial weaving maiden discovered who was behind this prank and met the cowherd, she fell deeply in love with him and they married. They lived happily for several years and had two children together.  Because they were so enamored with each other, the maiden stopped spinning altogether and the cowherd forgot to tend to his cows.

The Queen Mother of the West became quite upset with this state of affairs and commanded the weaving maiden to return to Heaven. The maiden found her original clothes and flew off to the sky. The cowherd attempted to follow, but before he could reach his beloved, the Queen Mother took a golden hairpin from her hair, and with it she drew a great river (known as the Milky Way) between the two lovers. The weaving maiden now sits on one side of the river and is identified with the constellation Aquila.

The two lovers are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh night of the seventh month. At that time, flocks of magpies fly together to form a bridge so that the maiden can cross the river and re-unite with her husband.

But if there is rain on this day, the river floods, sweeping away the bridge and preventing their long-awaited meeting. Of course, this is a fable, so there are many versions. In one, the presence of rain is said to mean that the couple actually met and that the droplets are, in fact, tears shed by the separating couple, who must wait another full year before their tender rendezvous. 

How do you like this story? It is a sad story in some ways, but is romantic in the belief that love never fades when you treasure it forever. It is a timeless tale, with similar versions in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Japanese celebrate Tanabata, when Orihime (the Weaving Princess, daughter of Tentei, the Sky King), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (Milky Way). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad. Because of her hard work, she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (Cow Herder Star, also referred to as Kengyuu) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love and married shortly thereafter. Once married, however, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Moved by his daughter’s tears, Tentei allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, the couple found they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

In Korea, the celebration is Chilseok. According to that well-known story, the heavenly king had a daughter called Jiknyeo, who was very good at weaving clothes. One day, when she looked out of the window while weaving, she saw a handsome boy, a herder called Gyeonwu, just across the Milky Way. She fell in love with him, and finally the heavenly father allowed the two to marry. Afterward, Jiknyeo would not weave clothes, and Gyeonwu would not care for the cows and sheep. The heavenly king grew angry, and ordered the couple to live apart from each other, allowing them to meet only once a year. On the seventh day of the seventh month of each year, they were excited to meet, but could not cross the Milky Way. However, crows and magpies worked together to form a bridge across the Milky Way. After a while, of course, their sadness returned because they were forced to wait another year before meeting again. It is said that crows and magpies have no feathers on their heads due to the couple’s tredding on them. If it rains on that night, it is said to be the couple’s tears. 

In Vietnam, this day is called Ngày mưa ngâu (Continual Rain Day). The tale describes a pair of lovers, Ngưu Lang, who is the Jade Emperor's buffalo man and an outstanding bamboo fluter, and Chức Nữ, who is responsible for fabric weaving. They too were so passionate for each other so as to fail to do work. The Jade Emperor became angry and decided the two lovers must live on opposite sides of sông Ngân (the Milky Way). But later the Jade Emperor, feeling sorry for them, permitted the lovers to meet once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar year.

Unable to cross the Milky Way on their own, the Jade Emperor ordered crows and racket-tailed treepies to build a bridge across the Milky Way. From then on, that bridge bore the name cầu Ô Thước ("Crow and Pie Bridge").

Every year, when they meet each other, the lovers cry and cry and cry. Their tears fall down from the sky and make a special kind of rain on this day: "mưa ngâu" ("continual rain" — a rain that lasts during a long period of time). This is why the people call them "ông Ngâu" and "bà Ngâu" (Sir and Madame Continual Rain).

Though these are stories of romance, certainly, there are other powerful lessons being told. Can you imagine what lesson the King or Emperor or Queen wants to convey to the young lovers? Are there other duties or chores that can’t be ignored, even when star-crossed?

The opened in February of 2008 and has served as a cultural center for growth that has touched hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world. The six-figure number of people who have experienced the beauty of the Chinese Garden continues to grow even now. The Chinese Garden, however, is more than just plants and trees and period architecture, but a place to find internal growth within our every dimension.

As a testament to the idea that a garden is not just a place to view the growth of nature, but a place to understand the growth within ourselves, a piloting program was hosted and organized by the Verdant Mist Society last March aimed towards introducing the four core skills of a Song Dynasty Scholar to young students. It turned out to be a very successful education program. It was our hope that by learning these values, the young minds of the coming generations would enter the ever-changing world equipped to face its dynamic challenges.

Programs like the "Qi Xi" Festival help to reaffirm those same four concepts and we have added more informational material such as De-coding the Lunar Calendar. Furthermore, we have introduced one of the fascinating festivals enjoyed by many generations in Asia. The story of Valentine's Day (Qi Xi) in four different versions (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) read by three famous readers in three different languages, one English and two Chinese dialects (Mandarin and Cantonese). The idea is to compare and contrast the similarities of different cultures. In the warm evening of August, we gather here and learn something old and experience something new. So after the event, the youth will walk away with a fruitful new experience and the elders may have a sense of belonging since all the activities that one experienced that night were once all very familiar to us.          

It is our hope and dream of the Verdant Mist Society that after an evening of cultural, perceptive, and internal cultivation, that the young minds of the future walk away with a new experience to add to their life journeys and that we as their elders--tasked with the responsibility and obligation to impart our wisdom unto our children--both walk away with a sense of familiarity, kinship, and belonging.

"It should be the hope and conviction of all of us that we must constantly work towards self-improvement. So we can make a difference in the next generation, together." These are the focus and goal of myself and my co-chair Rosa Zee of the Verdant Mist Scholar's Society.

I think James Folsom, Director of the Huntington, summed it up in his welcome to the event participants eloquently: "We hope this garden, and this evening help move the many communities and peoples of varying heritages in Southern California to increased mutual understanding and appreciation."