Happy Chinese V's Day

Today is the Chinese Valentine’s Day, AKA Double 7^th day. There is a beautiful love story behind this date. Not like the Valentine’s Day, there is only one version of this story. Here comes the story.

Long long ago, there is young man called Niu Lang, which literally means Cowboy. And there is a beautiful girl called Zhi Nv, weave maid, who is from Heaven and immortal. She is called the weave maid because she is good at weaving and can weave colorful silk very skillfully. Niu Lang’s parents died when he was a little boy, he lives with an old farm cattle ever since. Niu Lang and the old farm cattle work together and they become good friends. One day, the old farm cattle tell the young boy that the fairies from the heaven will come to have a bath in the river. If Niu Lang hide the weave maid’s clothes, he would marry to weave maid. And Niu Lang followed the old cattle’s instruction. After all the fairies fly away, weave maid find out that her clothes was in a young man’s hand. She won’t have her clothes back unless she promised to marry him. And to avoid the embarrassment, weave maid said yes since she has long known Niu Lang is a nice fellow.

the Niu Lang, Zhi Nv and the old farm cattle

They get married and they fall in love with each other, and they have a boy and a child. The Niu Lang do the plough work and the weave maid weave inside the house, they live very happily.

the upper right shining star is Zhi Nv Star, the lower left shining point is Niu Lang star, which named after the  main characters in the fairy tale

Unfortunately, the King of heaven knows that the weave maid married to a mortal, which is not allowed and should be punished. Then Niu lang and Zhi Nv was separated. Their two kids are crying every day for not seeing their mom. Niu Lang is also crying for not able to see his wife. The old farm cattle is too old, he was dying. One day the old cattle tell Niu Lang, when he dead, Niu Lang strip his hide and covered with it , he can fly to the heaven and be able to see Zhi Niu. Once again Niu Lang did what the old cattle told him. He uses a shoulder pole to carry their two kids with him and he wears the old cattle’s hide to heaven finding his wife. He flied sp high and high, he could even see his wife’s face.

This scene is caught by the Queen of heaven, she was two pissed off that she use’s her hair clasp to build a river between the couple, which is known as Milky Way. Niu Lang is angry and sad, he don’t know what to do. His little daughter suddenly speaks, she said: “Dad, let’s empty this river.” Niu Lang looking at his little girl and he said yes, let’s empties this river. They start to empty the river day after day, time after time. It is a scene that is so moving, that magpies are moved. Millions of thousands of magpie fly to the heaven and there are too many of them they build a magpie above the Milky Way on 7, 7^th, lunar calendar.

Then the family can unite in the Double 7^th day. So that’s why Chinese Valentine’s comes.

This is again a fairy tale that built to make people believing in love, I guess. A friend of mine do not like fairy tales too much, cause she thought that they are too misleading. It kinda poison people’s mind. I do agree with her, cause at some point, it is really too harsh to believe in fairy tale in the real world. Long time no tall, fairy floss. Happy Chinese Valentine’s day , cc. Happy Chinese Valentine’s day to all.