在中国，农历七月初七的夜晚，天气温暖，草木飘香，这就是人们俗称的七夕节，也有人称之为“乞巧节”或“女儿节”，这是中国传统节日中最具浪漫色彩的一个节日，也是过去姑娘们最为重视的日子。
七夕坐看牵牛织女星，是民间的习俗，相传，在每年的这个夜晚，是天上织女与牛郎在鹊桥相会之时。织女是一个美丽聪明、心灵手巧的仙女，凡间的妇女便在这一天晚上向她乞求智慧和巧艺，也少不了向她求赐美满姻缘，所以七月初七也被称为乞巧节。

女孩们在这个充满浪漫气息的晚上，对着天空的朗朗明月，摆上时令瓜果，朝天祭拜，乞求天上的女神能赋予她们聪慧的心灵和灵巧的双手，让自己的针织女红技法娴熟，更乞求爱情婚姻的姻缘巧配。过去婚姻对于女性来说是决定一生幸福与否的终身大事，所以，世间无数的有情男女都会在这个晚上，夜静人深时刻，对着星空祈祷自己的姻缘美满。

What is the best time to express your love to your sweetheart, on Valentine's Day or on Qixi, Chinese Double Seven Festival(the seventh day of the seventh lunar month)? Ask young friends around you, and most likely the answer would be the former, which is more popular and well known, and, very importantly, more likely to win over the pursued after heart.

Then what's wrong with our homemade Valentine's Day? After all, it enjoys a longer history than the western counterpart.

But, it seems that enjoying a long history is the only aspect in which the Double Seven Festival can outmatch the former.

As early as the Han Dynasty, girls began to celebrate Double Seven Festival in China. What's behind their celebration is their desire for the mastery of knitting, cooking and home making, each of which was a must to be a fair lady at that time. As a result, girls would make tables, light candles and present fruits in their courtyard in hope to be blessed to acquire these skills from the weaving girl. Later the festival was associated with a love story, but these activities survived.

However, modern times leave little space for these celebrations. Some young people even know nothing about Chinese Double Seven Festival. The preparations of tables and fruit offerings are really time-consuming, why bother? Besides, the idea of praying for knitting skill sounds utterly out-dated, let alone having any sense of romance. As a result, Chinese have switched to Valentine's roses and chocolate, which are more convenient and appealing to girls.

There is one more point we cannot afford to ignore: western festivals center around the personal relationship while the Chinese ones originate from the mortals' awe for the immortals. No doubt the former carry more temporal(世俗的) elements to attract ordinary people.

Old-fashioned celebration is not the only place where Double Seven Festival loses marks. To make things worse, few newspapers and magazines devote their pages to the festival, which in turn makes it less known and less popular.

To be or not to be, that is a question. Will this Double Seven Festival be ignored in modern society and die out together with many other cultural traditions? Fortunately more and more people have realized the problem and have begun to cherish them much more than a decade ago. Maybe what an unidentified teacher said in an online article can give us some hints: "The zeal for foreign festivals has overshadowed traditional Chinese celebrations. However, Chinese people should preserve their tradition in this era where world cultural diversity is protected."

As the cultures of the world keep on learning from each other and blending together, hopefully in the long run, Valentine's Day and Chinese Double Seven Festival will both exist, one way or another, and become a factor in China's new tradition.

Folklore about the festival

Qixi is China's Valentine's Day, also known as the "Double Seven Festival", and this year will fall on August 22. According to Chinese folklore, Zhinu (the weaving girl in heaven) who was the granddaughter of the Mother Lady Queen, fell in love with and married a young cowherd named Niulang, despite the rule prohibiting marriage between mortal and immortal. Zhinu was forced back to heaven, but Niulang pursued her with the help of a magic ox. The Mother Lady Queen lined out the Milky Way with her hairpin, separating the couple. Still they remained devoted and undeterred, and at last, on the 7th evening of the seventh lunar month, bevies(成群) of magpies bridged the Milky Way to bring Zhinu and Niulang back together. As such, the festival is also known as China's Valentine's Day. It is said that if you listen attentively under the stars on that evening, you may even overhear the couple's love chatting.

 Anecdotes on the festival

This beautiful tale has its origins in the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD). The festival is also based on an annual astronomical phenomenon. Every year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, two particular stars are bright in the night sky and shine until the sun rises. One of the stars is thought to be the weaving girl and the other is thought to be the cowherd. People have a custom of begging the weaving girl to teach them needlework and weaving skills on the Double Seven Festival. As such, the festival is also called the "Begging for Skills Festival" or the "Daughters' Festival." Another custom of the festival is praying to the Milky Way for a good harvest.