What date is Qixi Festival? The answer is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

Qixi Festival is an important traditional festival in China, falling on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, which is why it is also called the Double Seventh Festival. Because it is calculated according to the lunar calendar, its corresponding date on the Gregorian calendar changes every year, mostly falling between late July and August. If you want to know the exact date in a given year, just check that year's lunar-to-Gregorian conversion.

When it comes to Qixi, the most widely told story is the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. In the story, the Weaver Girl is a fairy in heaven who falls in love with the mortal Cowherd and marries him, but they are separated on opposite banks of the Milky Way, and only on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month each year can they meet once by crossing the bridge formed by magpies. This touching legend has given Qixi a color of faithful love since ancient times.

The traditional customs of Qixi are quite rich. In ancient times, women would thread needles and arrange melons and fruits to worship the Weaver Girl on this day, praying for skill with their hands, so Qixi is also called the Festival of Seeking Skills. There are also folk customs such as eating qiaoguo, airing clothes and books, and gazing at the stars Altair and Vega at night, and in some places Qixi is also celebrated as a daughters' festival.

Today Qixi is often called Chinese Valentine's Day, an important day for couples to exchange gifts and express their feelings. From an agricultural perspective, Qixi falls at the turn of summer and autumn, when field crops enter a critical growth period, and there are also old folk sayings about guessing the autumn harvest based on the weather on this day. Qixi has been included in the national intangible cultural heritage list, and this ancient festival remains full of vitality in modern life.