I don't know since when", "Tanabata" was hyped up as "Valentine's Day", in fact, the ancients fell in love, not in the Tanabata Festival.
The so-called "Tanabata Festival" is the ancient Valentine's Day, which is really the biggest misreading in history, in fact, the historical Tanabata is really not related to Valentine's Day...
The "Qixi Festival" is accurately called the "Beggar Festival", at least in the Han Dynasty, and the origin is of course the familiar legend of the cowherd and the weaver girl.
According to legend, Weaver Girl is the goddess of the celestial realm, she was born noble, but accidentally married a cowherd who came from a poor background and made a living by herding cattle. After that, the little two lived a small life of male cultivators and female weavers, and harmony and beauty.
Who knows, the Queen Mother of Heaven knew about this matter, not only broke up the two of them, but also drew a galaxy, which can only be seen once a year.
But this legend only says that the love between the weaver girl and the cowherd is not the "Queqiao Meeting" that celebrates the cowherd weaver girl, and has nothing to do with the male and female love that everyone understands.
In today's terms, Tanabata should be "Girls' Day", a day to party with the little sisters, and this holiday is limited to unmarried women!
On the day of the Tanabata Festival, unmarried girls will play in groups, begging Vega stars on the stars to become skillful, and launching a variety of female workers' competitions, which is really a festival where girls and girls play together!
Later, in the context of the rapid development of urban commerce, on the night of the Tanabata Festival, the streets were brightly lit, and there was a market specializing in selling beggars in the street market, and girls could go out shopping and buy things on this night.
This obviously goes against the meaning of Valentine's Day.
In fact, you don't have to think about it to know that in ancient times, girls did not go out of the door, and it was not so easy to go out once. Especially for unmarried women, so Tanabata is not likely to be a holiday for dating lovers.
So are the ancients really just Valentine's Day?
In fact, there are still festivals similar to "Valentine's Day", and the Lantern Festival and shangwei Festival are more in line with the standards of "Valentine's Day".
In ancient times, it was basically difficult for girls to have a chance to go out and play, especially those who were big girls and small family jasper. Since you can't even go out of the door, let alone talk about dating.
The Lantern Festival has a very long history, which was established at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, probably for more than 2,000 years, and is a romantic festival in traditional Chinese festivals.
At that time, the Lantern Festival, known as the Shangyuan Festival, was a very grand festival.
During the Lantern Festival, big cities will be illuminated and sing and danced. The government will order permission to open the door of the shop, relax the ban for three nights, and let people party all night.
Because there is no curfew, women can also go out in the open, so this night married pairs, two lovers but unmarried can date, single people can find a partner.
On the night of the Lantern Festival, the women in the deep boudoir can come out together to admire the moon, make flower lanterns, and guess the riddles of the lights, providing a good opportunity for young boys and girls who have just opened their love sinuses to meet.
Even in the Song Dynasty, when Cheng Zhu Lixue was popular, girls could still go to the street market to watch the lanterns and have fun, even if they did not return late at night, others would not be more harsh. Therefore, the Lantern Festival has also created countless good relationships and beautiful families.
However, the meeting of men and women is not a holiday theme, but only an individual situation.
Although the origin of the Lantern Festival is not to match men and women, from the custom, the Lantern Festival has a more "Chinese Valentine's Day" flavor than the Qixi Festival.
The Lantern Festival has a romantic charm, and the Shangwei Festival is more like an authentic Valentine's Day.
In ancient times, when the March 3rd Festival came, not only young men and women traveled to the countryside for spring, but the government encouraged men and women to meet. As early as the Zhou Dynasty, "March 3" can be said to have the status of a legal Valentine's Day. It is recorded in the Zhou Li Di Guan Media Clan that "in the middle of the spring month, the men and women of the Meeting were ordered, so when the time came, the runners could not help it." ”
Probably means that in this season suitable for love, everyone should not miss it. If after the agreement, the absentees who do not go will be punished; and the participants who are happy with each other, even if they elope, will not be stopped!
It can be said that shangwei festival is the most authentic Valentine's Day in China.
"Hundred Maps of Ancient Customs" depicts the folk customs of the pre-Qin Zhengguo in this way: bells and drums on the Qinhu River, and tourists enjoy pottery. Red men and green women wear vanilla, and the two love each other to give peony medicine. People will stroll and date with their lovers on the day of the Festival, and unmarried men and women who meet a happy person will boldly set a lifelong private decision and give each other a bouquet of peony flowers as an agreement.
And peony, has also become the flower of Love in China, when lovers part, often with peony medicine gifts, deep and shallow affection, thousands of times of thoughts, are contained in this peony flower.
Of course, the ancients could not only rely on sending peony medicine to get married, on the contrary, sending peony medicine on the Shangwei Festival was only the beginning. The marriage etiquette of the ancients is much more complicated and solemn than that of modern people, starting from asking a matchmaker to propose relatives; to the exchange of names and eight characters between the two sides; to going to the ancestral temple to divinate and marry; and then to sending dowry gifts and choosing a date to invite the date, after which the bride can be officially married.
In addition to being a festival of love, shangwei festival is also a diversified day.
As early as the mysterious antiquity of the prevalence of witchcraft, Shangwei has already appeared.
After a cellar of winter storage, the evil qi was sinking, and in order to get rid of the ominousness in the body, under the leadership of a full-time witch, the big guys gathered on the riverside on the first day of March, washed with orchid grass, and nodded their heads with willow branches dipped in petals.
In the Shangwei Festival, the original meaning of "巳" refers to the children in the fetal bag. Married women, on the feast of the lord of the festival, ask for heirs, or sacrifice to the god of fertility, Gao Yu, or float eggs and red dates in the water; women compete to pick up eggs in the water and swallow them to get children.
Literati and scholars played "Qu Shui Liu Xiang" and raised the connotation of a festival to the extreme.
Everyone sat on both sides of the canal, and the wine glasses flowed down the river from the top, and stopped in front of whomever they put the wine into chanting. It's the same thing as the drifting bottles that we play with young people now, except that it's not the bottles that drift, but the wine glasses!
The ancients described the Shangmi Festival this way: "Shangmi is close, and the three springs are beautiful." The flowers are light in the rain, and the willows are lightly covered with smoke. When the swallows are swept by the wind, the warblers are exposed. "Such a festive season, with a lot of romance, very unique.
Shangwei Festival is now the "third of March".
From the perspective of development, march 3 (Shangwei Festival) has a long history;
From a customary point of view, the third of March (Shangwei Festival) provides an opportunity for men and women in ancient times to meet; from the perspective of time, March 3 is the spring of the revival of all things, which is the most suitable time to fall in love.
And some scholars believe that Tanabata is a "July fire", the yang is extremely strong and decaying, and it is more of a bitter grievance in autumn. And March 3 is the season when all things grow and youth sprouts, to some extent, the ancients set March 3 (Shangwei Festival) as "Chinese Valentine's Day", which is very in line with historical traditions and natural laws.
Therefore, on such occasions when young men and women gather, the girls must be dressed up, until later with the development of society gradually evolved into "Daughter's Day".
After the Song Dynasty, the science of science prevailed, the etiquette gradually became stricter, and the interaction between men and women could not be too intimate, and the custom of the Shangwei Festival gradually declined in Han culture.
So much so that now people have forgotten that it is the oldest and most authentic "Valentine's Day". I only remember that March 3 (Shangwei Festival) is a traditional festival of ethnic minorities in Guangxi, and on the third day of the third month of the Guangxi lunar calendar, there will be a large number of beautiful men and girls of ethnic minorities who will sing in groups and sing songs.
Not only the Shangwei Festival, many traditional festivals have gradually been forgotten by the Chinese people, but a variety of foreign festivals are sought after by the Chinese people.