Society

Villages fight over fairytale as lovers unite

By Yu Ran (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-17 08:08

SHANGHAI - As China's lovebirds were busy soaking in the celebration of love during the Qixi Festival, the Chinese version of Valentine's Day, on Monday, a few cities continued with a fight to win tourists by claiming to be the place of origin of a fairytale that resulted in the day of romance.

The fairytale is about a love story between a cowherd, Niulang, and a fairy girl, Zhinu (weaver girl), who were separated by the Goddess of Heaven after learning that the fairy had married a mere mortal.

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The Goddess ordered Zhinu back to heaven. Meanwhile, Niulang's ox asked to be killed and suggested his master put on its hide and travel with him to heaven to find his love. Upon learning of the plan, the goddess scratched a wide river in the sky with a hairpin to separate the two lovers forever.

But once a year, all the magpies in the world would take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers could be together for a single night, which is the seventh night of the seventh moon.

In the olden days, Qixi was not a special day for lovers but for girls. It was well known as the "Begging for Skills Festival" or "Daughters' Festival."

Young women offered fruit and pastries to pray for a bright mind, the prerequisite for being a good wife and mother in ancient China. Competitions on weaving and needlework were held to select the winner who had the best hands and the brightest mind.

"Qixi has been reintroduced as the Valentine's Day within the last decade as a commercial tool," said Liu Zongdi, professor at the Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The controversy on the origin of the fairytale has lasted for many years between Heshun in Shanxi province, Yiyuan in Shandong province and Lushan in Henan province.

Heshun and Lushan are two cultural villages responsible for the folk love story, as authorized by the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society.

But Heshun village stakes sole claim on the tale, saying the area has a few places that correspond with the story, such as Niulang Cave, Magpie Mountain and Tianhe Pond.

However, the Zhinu Cave, Niulang Temple, and the Yi River situated in Yiyuan village are said to be the only territory where Niulang and Zhinu met every year.

The long-lasting debate between the villages is a way to attract more visitors and business opportunities, according to experts.

"There's no way to find out the origin of a folk story which was spread by word of mouth. We'd better respect it as a beautiful fairytale," Liu said, adding that it is ridiculous to argue about the origin of the folk story.