"Emperor Di Huang, I invite the seventh sister to heaven." Don't map your needle, don't map your thread, optical your seventy-two good means... "Today is the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and it is the annual Tanabata Festival."
The Tanabata Festival is a traditional Chinese folk festival and was included in the first list of national intangible cultural heritage on May 20, 2006. Because the Qixi Festival is inseparable from the love story of the cowherd weaver girl, people also call it "Chinese Valentine's Day", which adds a bit of romantic color to this festival. So, did you make an appointment today?
Many traditional Chinese cultures have spread overseas, and the Tanabata Festival is no exception. For thousands of years, many Asian countries that have been deeply influenced by Chinese culture, such as Japan, have celebrated the Tanabata Festival.
The Tanabata Festival spread to Japan around the time of the Nara period in Japan.
The Nara period was from 710 to 794 AD. Although this period of time is only 84 years, it has allowed Japan to have a situation of cultural prosperity for the first time. At that time, China was in the midst of the Tang Dynasty. In order to comprehensively study Chinese culture, Japan sent envoys and students from the Tang Dynasty to travel across the ocean to China to learn About China's legal system, culture and art, science and technology, and customs. One of the more famous is Abe Zhongmalu (Chinese name Chao Heng), who lived in China for 54 years, and went through three generations of emperors of Tang Xuanzong, Tang Suzong, and Tang Dynasty.
It was in this cultural exchange that the Tanabata Festival entered Japan. Originally, the Tanabata Festival spread to the Japanese court and high society. The dignitaries imitated the Tang Dynasty nobles to hold activities such as Tanabata sacrifices, Tanabata poetry meetings, and needle begging. Later, the Tanabata Festival gradually spread among the people and became a well-known custom in Japan.
Same festival, different ways. How do Japanese people celebrate the Tanabata Festival?
The first is to hang "short books" and "staccades".
From the Edo period onwards, it was popular in Japan to hang "short books" and "sasa ornaments" during the Tanabata Festival. Every time this day comes, every household will pile up "sasa ornaments" in the yard and hang "short books". The "Sasa Ornament" is a tall ornament made of bamboo, and the "short book" is a paper label used to write wishes. Adults and children write wishes and poems in "short books". The "short booklet" is made of colored paper, hung with five-colored lines, and hung on the "stilt ornament", like a Christmas tree in the West.
During the Tanabata Festival, if you visit Sendai City, you will find that the entire City of Sendai is full of gorgeous "short books" and "Sasa ornaments". These "short books" and "ornaments" are works of art that make people linger.
The second is to hold tanabata festivals.
When tanabata was introduced to Japan, the Japanese court and high society used it as a day of sacrifice. To this day, sacrifices are still an important part of the Tanabata Festival.
Every summer, the Kyoto Tanabata Festival is one of the three major festivals in Japan, and a variety of events are held, such as the Sumo Festival, the Tanabata Tachibana Festival, the Imperial Hand Wash Festival, the Love Achievement Festival, and the Needle Begging Festival. Sumo is a traditional Japanese sport, Tachibana is a flower arrangement meeting, love achievement festival is the favorite of young men and women, and needle begging is to remind women not to forget traditional virtues.
Here's another story. In the Heian period of Japan more than 1,000 years ago, there was a famous scholar who was revered by the Japanese as the "god of learning" called Sugawara Michimasa. One year during the Tanabata Festival, after Sugahara Michimasa sang a famous Japanese song at Kitamagu Shrine in Kyoto, he saw the god worship a friend's favorite ink stone, water pot, and horn basin before he saw the god, touched the scene and washed his hands in the water pot and the corner basin. This was originally a very casual action, but it was retained by the Japanese as a traditional custom of the Tanabata Festival.
The third is to eat vegetarian noodles.
Suo cake is a food similar to twist flower, native to China. According to Chinese legend, "The son of the emperor who died on July 7 became a spirit god and caused the fever epidemic." Therefore, the child's favorite bread is offered to sacrifice. Eating bread on July 7, you can spend a year without illness or disaster. Later, the bread spread to Japan. After the Japanese improved it, it formed today's soba cake. The specific method of the bread is to mix wheat and rice flour, mix it with water, twist it into a slender shape like a rope, and then fry or bake it.
In ancient times, the Japanese loved to eat soba cakes during the Tanabata Festival. Soba cake is a fried baked food, high in calories, not suitable for eating in the hot summer, so the Japanese use vegetarian noodles instead of soy cakes. The plain surface is slender and slender, and can be seen as the textile thread of the Milky Way or the Weaver Girl,
However, although Japan also celebrates the Tanabata Festival, the date is different from that in China. The Chinese Tanabata Festival is the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, while the Japanese Tanabata Festival is july 7 of the Gregorian calendar.
Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan, like China, celebrated the Tanabata Festival on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. After the Meiji Restoration, the Lunar Calendar was abolished in Japan, so people changed to the Tanabata Festival on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar. In this way, the Japanese Tanabata Festival is more than a month earlier than the Chinese Tanabata Festival.