Qixi Festival

Japan is the country in which Qixi culture has undergone the most thorough transformation after spreading overseas. Qixi was introduced from China to Japan during the Nara period. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan abolished the lunar calendar, and Tanabata came to be celebrated on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar each year. Unlike China, where the love story occupies a central position, Japanese Tanabata places greater emphasis on praying for improvement in skills, particularly the hope that girls will acquire outstanding handicraft abilities. From the Nara period onward, the imperial court and aristocracy began imitating Tang-dynasty customs by holding Tanabata rituals, threading-needle competitions for skill, and elegant poetry gatherings. Hanging bamboo and writing poetry slips: the central customs of Japanese Tanabata. Beginning in the Edo period, adults and children would write wishes and poems on colorful elongated paper slips on Tanabata, hanging them together with paper decorations from small bamboo branches before setting the bamboo upright in the courtyard. After Tanabata ended, the bamboo and offerings were placed in rivers, symbolizing the hope that one’s wishes would reach the River of Heaven. In Sendai, Kyoto, and many other places, paper garments associated with Tanabata were regarded as a means of dispelling misfortune—people used these paper garments to pray for favorable winds and timely rain. Sendai Tanabata Festival: Japan’s largest Tanabata celebration. The Sendai Tanabata Festival is Japan’s largest and one of its most popular Tanabata celebrations. Every year from August 6 to 8, the shopping streets of central Sendai are filled with brightly colored paper and decorations, creating a spectacular sight. Tanabata events are also held throughout Japan, including portable-shrine processions, floats, drum-and-flute ensembles, and parades. Oita Tanabata Festival: a summer celebration of traditional dance. The Oita Tanabata Festival is the largest summer event in Oita City and is generally held on the first Friday and Saturday of August. Its principal highlight on the first day is “府内戦紙”, in which dance teams and vividly colored floats made with washi paper, shaped as dancers and rising dragons, proceed magnificently along Chuo-dori. On the second day, the “大分chikirin囃子市民総踊” is held. Dancers move to the cheerful rhythm of chikirin (钲), a traditional percussion instrument long used in Oita, striking bamboo sticks as they perform lively dances, while spectators are also welcome to join in. During the festival, downtown shopping streets are decorated with bamboo, paper cranes, paper wind streamers, and other traditional Japanese Tanabata ornaments. Goryokaku Tower Tanabata Festival: Qixi culture in Hakodate. Hakodate’s Goryokaku Tower holds a Tanabata Festival each year from July 1 to July 7, introducing the story of the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd and inviting visitors to experience Hakodate’s distinctive Tanabata culture. Tanabata blessings at the airport: a journey of wishes from Taoyuan to Sendai. Japan Airlines (JAL) once organized a Tanabata blessing activity at Taoyuan International Airport, placing a “Tanabata wishing bamboo” in front of the boarding gate for flights to Tokyo and inviting travelers to write down their wishes and hang them from the bamboo branches. All the wish slips were later flown to Japan and offered at Osaki Hachimangu Shrine in Sendai. By transforming an airport waiting area into a Tanabata prayer space, this creative initiative allowed Qixi culture to travel with people on their journeys.

South Korea’s Chilseok also originated in ancient China and is celebrated each year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. One of the most representative traditions of Korean Chilseok is worshipping the Weaver Girl Star, through which people pray for improved handicraft skills, particularly in weaving. On the morning of Chilseok, women place melons, fruits, and other offerings before the Weaver Girl Star and pray devoutly. Praying to the Weaver Girl Star: the Korean form of Qiqiao. Similar to China’s Qiqiao (乞巧), praying for dexterity, Korean women pray to the Weaver Girl during Chilseok for greater skill with their hands. That morning, women place melons, cucumbers, and other fruits on tables, bowing and praying that their weaving skills will become increasingly accomplished. Airing books and clothing: putting things in order during a quieter season. The seventh lunar month is the period when the intense heat gradually begins to subside, and it also comes after the busiest agricultural work has ended, while farming households wait for the autumn harvest. After the rainy season, farming families traditionally take out clothing and books that have become damp during the summer and dry them in the sun. Offerings and food: pumpkin pancakes and steamed cakes. Pumpkins, cucumbers, and melons begin to reach abundance during this period, and people often make offerings of fried pumpkin to the Big Dipper. Traditional Korean households prepare Chilseok pancakes and steamed cakes, while younger generations may go out to eat seafood pancakes or kimchi pancakes.

Qixi celebrations in Vietnam are concentrated primarily among Chinese communities. Qixi is also known in Vietnam as “the Day of the Cowherd Lord and Weaver Lady.” Vietnamese Qixi likewise involves prayers for beautiful love, but places greater emphasis on collective worship and blessings than on romantic dates between couples. Among the Chinese community in Ho Chi Minh City, Qixi offerings are largely similar to those found in southern China, including water caltrops, 棋子饼, 金钱饼, peanuts, and two offerings closely associated with the legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl: “禾秧” and the “七姐盘”. Many young people also write their hopes for love and family on slips of paper, silently making wishes during worship and hoping for a happy and fulfilling future. One intriguing cultural difference is that while Chinese people regard Qixi as a lovers’ festival, Vietnamese people instead avoid holding weddings during the seventh lunar month, fearing that the bride and groom may end up living apart like the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. This taboo itself demonstrates the depth of the legend’s influence in Vietnamese culture: the story has not simply been “romanticized,” but has instead been treated with a serious sense of reverence and caution.

Chinese communities in Southeast Asia have mainly preserved two major Qixi traditions: Qiqiao, praying for skill, and “celebrating the sixteenth year,” a coming-of-age custom for children. Singapore: from the “Seven Sisters Associations” to a Guinness World Record. From the 1930s through the 1970s, Cantonese women in Singapore spontaneously organized “Seven Sisters Associations” (七姐会) to celebrate Qixi. They handmade paper altars, displayed handicrafts, sang songs, and prayed for blessings, turning neighborhood streets and lanes into festive spaces. Although this tradition faded for a time, it has been revived in recent years. Qixi Fest aims to revive this long-forgotten festival through a series of activities. In 2025, Singapore’s Qixi Qiqiao Carnival attracted more than 180,000 participants, including Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During the event, organizers undertook a Guinness World Records challenge for the “largest team embroidery.” From July 7 to August 7, more than 600 participants from across Singapore took part, including older people, young people, school groups, families, migrant workers, and disadvantaged groups. From the handmade paper altars of the “Seven Sisters Associations” to an embroidery challenge involving 600 people, Singapore’s Qixi completed a striking transformation from tradition to modernity. Malaysia: three native-place communities, each with its own traditions. Ethnic Chinese account for about 23% of Malaysia’s population, and Chinese culture has taken deep root there. Among Chinese communities of different native-place origins, Fujianese, Cantonese, and Teochew communities celebrate Qixi most ceremonially: Fujianese families “celebrate the sixteenth year” for children who reach the age of sixteen; Cantonese communities maintain active customs of worshipping the Seven Sisters; and Teochew families hold “Chut Huay Hng” (出花园), “leaving the garden,” for children. The Fujianese and Teochew customs are relatively similar, being centered mainly on worshipping protective deities of children. Once children reach a certain age, a ritual is held to dissolve their “contract” with the protective deity. The Penang Tong On Association holds a Qiqiao Festival every year, continuing a tradition more than a century old. Penang has many century-old associations, but only the Tong On Association has consistently maintained its Qiqiao celebration. The festival was originally worshipped by “ma jie” (妈姐) women and was gradually passed down thereafter. Offerings include the handmade “Seven Sisters Basin” (七姐盆) prepared annually by members, as well as cosmetics, needles and thread, fans, seven-colored flowers, seven grains, seven cakes, and seven kinds of fruit. The Tong On Association is not only the only association in Penang to celebrate the Qiqiao Festival, but is even the only one in Malaysia, and many members from other states make special journeys to attend the ceremony. In Johor and surrounding areas, Chinese associations frequently organize Qixi handicraft markets, paper-cutting competitions, and blessing ceremonies. The Chinese community in Johor Bahru once organized an “Love in the South” cultural evening that attracted more than one thousand participants from various ethnic groups, with local media devoting extensive coverage to the event. After Cantonese Qixi customs spread to Malaysia, they underwent certain changes. Practices such as opera performances and singing, Taoist scripture recitation, and praying to the Weaver Girl for skill became relatively uncommon in Malaysia. Some offerings absorbed Fujianese customs. In regions where Fujian folk traditions predominate, communities of different native-place origins borrowed from one another and blended their cultures, forming a distinctive Nanyang form of Qixi. Thailand: Qixi memories among Chinese communities. Chinese communities in Thailand likewise maintain traditions during Qixi. The festival carries meanings of longing and reunion. Thai friends experience Qixi romance through traditional Chinese gifts such as fragrance sachets, round fans, 罗帕, combs, and hairpins.