Aug 14, 2021

Qixi Festival 2021

This Doodle’s Key Themes

Tonight, romance is in the air as two stars reunite in the sky above. Today’s Doodle celebrates the Qixi Festival, or the Double Seventh Festival, which originated from a 2000-year-old myth of star-crossed lovers.

According to one of the ancient legends, an ox herder named Niulang married the celestial weaver Zhinü, who was a fairy and the daughter of an empress. Zhinü’s mother soon heard of her daughter’s marriage to a mortal being and forced her to return to the heavens. Heartbroken, Niulang covered himself in a magic ox hide to visit Zhinü. To separate the lovers, the empress filled the sky with the river of stars now called the Milky Way.

The couple was cast into the sky as the stars Altair and Vega and allowed by the empress to meet once a year on a bridge of magpies over the Milky Way. This annual reunion occurs on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Today, couples commemorate this romantic tale by going on dates and exchanging gifts and flowers to show their admiration.

Happy Qixi Festival!

Early drafts of the Doodle below

Where this Doodle appeared

The Doodle Qixi Festival 2021 launched Aug 14, 2021

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