The Summer Triangle and Chinese Valentines Day

The Summer triangle and the Chinese Valentines Day - Qixi (七夕 )

Look up into the sky on a mid-summer evening, and you will find the summer triangle shining brightly overhead. The Summer Triangle is formed by the bright stars Vega, Altair and Deneb, the Milky Way makes its way through the summer triangle like a stream that splits the triangle into two sides.There is a romantic folklore that involves stars in the Summer Triangle, the stars of this love story are Vega (Zhinü [ü is pronounced like "ee + oo" - see https://www.newconceptmandarin.com/chinese-pronunciation/] 織女), representing a beautiful weaver girl, and Altair (Niulang 牛郎), representing a cowherd.

The love story starts off with Zhinü and Niulang being gods in the heavens, Zhinü is youngest of the six daughters of the Heavenly Queen Mother and the Jade Emperor, whereas Niulang is in charge of the celestial herd. Niulang and Zhinü both fell in love, which went against the heavenly laws, and Niulang was banished to earth, where he became an orphan cowherd living with his brother and sister. A god spoke up to the Queen and Emperor for Zhinü and Niulang but was turned into an old cow and banished to earth together with Niulang. As for Zhinü, she was punished to weave colorful clouds all day long, but she was sad as she had lost her beloved man. 

One day, Zhinü and her sisters obtained permission from the Heavenly Queen Mother to go down to earth and bathe in the river. Niulang so happened to be passing by the river and spotted Zhinü and became very happy. He stole Zhinü’s clothes and told Zhinü that he will give her back her clothes if she married him. Zhinü soon figured out the earthly Niulang was the man she had loved and agreed to marry him. Zhinü and Niulang lived a happy life on earth where Zhinü gave birth to two children.

Unfortunately the happiness did not last, soon the Heavenly Queen Mother found out about Zhinü’s marriage and sent heavenly troops to capture Zhinü. Upon returning home and finding his dear wife missing, Niulang was very sad, but he remembered the old cow who was banished together with him, the old cow had died, but before he died, he told Niulang to keep his cow hide, the cow hide is magic and will make Niulang be able to fly. So Niulang took the magic cow hide and his two children and flew into the sky after Zhinü. However, the Queen Mother used her golden hairpin to create a celestial river (the Milky Way) that separated Zhinü on one side, Niulang with their children on the other side…

And so goes the sad love story between Zhinü and Niulang, and according to the folklore, we can see the lonely seamstress with her sisters (Vega and the constellation Lyra) on one side of the Milky Way looking longingly across the celestial river at Niulang and their two children (Altair, beta and gamma Aquila). However the story doesn’t end here and all is not lost, the deep love between Zhinü and Niulang moved a flock of magpies and every year on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the magpies flocked together to form a bridge across the celestial river so that the lovers and their children can reunite, and this is the origin of the Chinese Valentine’s Day or Qixi festival.     

* Although the story of Zhinü and Niulang is Chinese folklore, the story has spread to many other countries in Asia as well including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand etc., where each locale may have its own form of the story. 

References:

[1] https://www.siamskies.com/2020/07/blog-post.html

[2] https://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/chinese-valentines-day-story-cowherd-weaver-girl.htm

* photo of the Summer Triangle taken by Dr. Derrick Lim using a Fuji X-H1 and a Samyang 12mm f2 lens