Chinese Valentine's Day or Qixi Festival

Chinese Valentine's Day is also known as Qixi Festival (means The Nights of Sevens) or sometimes Magpie festival. It is celebrated by the Chinese every seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese calendar. This is not a public holiday in China but it's very popular to the young ones.

This year, the celebration falls on April 16, 2010. And although most of those who participate it are young people, they still do traditional practices such as ladies carving melons and then wishes for a good husband. The ladies also do the needle test wherein they put a needle on a water and when it stays afloat is means that the lady is matured and is ready for marriage. On this day, lovers go to a temple of Matchmaker and pray for a happy and loving relationship or marriage.

Chinese Valentine's Day is also know as The Daughter’s Festival, The Festival to Plead for Skills, The Seventh Sister’s Birthday, The Night of Skills
mainly because on earlier times, ladies are said to wear their finest traditional Chinese dresses and showcase their domestic skills like carving, cooking, baking, quilting so men would know how they will be as wives. On modern times, this showing of skills had waned off because most young couples are open to shared domestic duties.

So what's your Chinese Valentine's story?