According to Japanese legend, the weaver girl not only gives her children skillful hands, but also is responsible for satisfying various wishes.
According to Japanese legend, the weaver girl not only gives her children skillful hands, but also is responsible for satisfying various wishes. China and Qixi pray for good craftsmanship and love. On Tanabata, it is not mainly used to pray for love, but to pray for girls to have good skills. At this time of the year, adults and children get together, write down their wishes and poems on colorful long poems, hang them on small bamboos in their own yards with decorations made of paper, and put offerings such as corn and pears in the yards, so as to pray for the Weaver Girl to bless her girls' progress in calligraphy and tailoring.
At the end of the celebration, these offerings will be thrown into the river and floated away as a symbol of their hope to reach Tianhe.
It is said that Tanabata was introduced to Japan from China in Nara era. When Tanabata is mentioned, people will associate it with the day when the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl met. This wonderful legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is also widely known in Japan.
Different from China, the Japanese have started the special activities of Tanabata since the Edo period. Write your wishes on a piece of paper with thread, and then tie the written paper to a bamboo branch, so that you can get what you want.
This practice only exists in Japan, but not in other countries. It can be seen that the Japanese do not copy the culture of other countries, but absorb it according to their own national customs and integrate it into their national life.
Chinese Valentine's Day in Sendai, Hirazuka and Miyagi was a sensation, and Tanabata activities were held on a large scale in Sagamihara, Ancheng and Takaoka.
Although there are no big festivals in Tokyo, people can see paper labels with their wishes on bamboo branches everywhere on Tanabata. At Tamamachi Station, on this day, bamboo branches decorate the big pillars in the center of the station, which are filled with wishes and hopes written by kindergarten children in the port area.
According to different local customs, there are different ways to celebrate Chinese Valentine's Day. Now it is popular to write your wishes in a small notebook, that is, to write poems and draw pictures on a rectangular piece of paper and hang them on bamboo branches in order to pray for their wishes to come true. It is said that in the Muromachi era, General Chinese Valentine's Day personally wrote poems on seven leaves every year, and then tied them to the roof with offerings such as dried noodles for poetic access. General Tokugawa's family hung short books on bamboo branches to celebrate. At that time, Edo had just begun to popularize reading calligraphy, so people began to hang colored paper, poems, pens, ink, colored lines and cloth strips on bamboo branches, hoping that the skills of calligraphy, abacus calculation and sewing would be improved.
In modern times, the wish of Tanabata is no longer limited to this. People write down all kinds of wishes in short books. Because this custom also comes from beautiful love myths, it is even more romantic if you want to pray for the success of love. Once upon a time, bamboo branches with pamphlets were usually erected on the evening of July 6, and on July 7, bamboo branches filled with wishes were put into the sea or river and let it drift away. This is called sending Tanabata, which, like many practices in Japan, implies the hope that water can take away disasters and bring good luck. Now, there are no seas and rivers nearby, or even if there are, it is because of environmental pollution.
It is often impossible to send Tanabata. Many kindergartens and primary schools burn the simplified books after the action, instead of sending them to Tanabata.
This is called Tanabata!