All lovers know that Valentine’s Day is February 14, a time for declarations of love. No one is quite sure just who the saint was, but some believed the origin of this special day goes back to 270 AD when, so it was told, a Christian named Valentine, was condemned to die on February 14. While in prison, he restored the sight of the coalers daughter, with whom he had fallen in love. Signing it, “From your Valentine”.
As the West has their Valentine’s Day origins and traditions, the East too has theirs. The Chinese Valentine’s Day is on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The myth of this day is based on a love story of the Weaving Girl and the Cow Herd boy.
The Weaving Girl, the granddaughter of the Celestial Emperor, lived to the east of the Heavenly River, where she wove on her loom the beautiful clothes of Heaven. The Cow Herd boy was a poor orphan in the mortal world whose only means of transport was an old ox.
One day, the Weaving Girl and some celestial fairies came down to a nearby stream to bathe, and at the ox’s urging, the Herd boy stole the Weaving Girl’s clothes, whereupon they met and fell in love, and married. They lived together happily, and soon had a son and a daughter. But the Celestial Emperor, who was unhappy with the union, took the Weaving Girl back to Heavenly Court. Thus the couple was separated.
The Celestial Emperor would permit them to meet only once a year, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On this day, at the fluttering magpies form a bridge over the Heavenly River, and the lovers would cross the bridge to meet each other.