Festivals · Seventh day of the seventh lunar month — usually August.

Qixi — the Double Seventh七夕

China's own romantic festival, and much older than the Valentine's Day it is now often compared to. The story is that the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd — the stars Vega and Altair — were separated across the Milky Way and are allowed to meet one night a year, when magpies form a bridge. Traditionally it was a women's festival about needlework skill and a good match; commercially it is now a major date for restaurants and jewellers. It is a quiet one to witness rather than a spectacle, but the mythology is worth knowing because it turns up everywhere in Chinese art.