Chinese Valentine's Day, Qixi festival,
also known as the Double Seven Festival, falls on the seventh day of the
seventh month of the lunar calendar - July 31 in the western calendar this
year. Different activities were held in China to celebrate this festival that
dates back to a 2,500-year-old poem from the Han Dynasty.
"The Qixi festival expresses the traditional
values of love in China that lovers should live to a ripe age together and be
faithful to each other no matter what difficulties they encounter," said Feng
Jicai, chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature & Arts Society. For
details about the festival visit:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/2006-07/31/content_653343.htm
Newly-wed couples hold paper cranes during a
mass wedding ceremony in Nanjing, in east China's Jiangsu province Sunday July
30, 2006. The ceremony is held to mark the Qixi festival. The wall was decorated
with 770,000 paper cranes in celebration of the festival, which the organisers
hope will qualify for a Guinness World Record for the highest number of paper
cranes made in a single event. [AP]
