Happy Chinese Valentine's Day!

The Qixi holiday is related to a traditional romantic tragedy that most Chinese remember being told when they were children. In the story, since marriage between a mortal and fairy was strictly forbidden, the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid, who was a goddess, could only meet on that one day every year.

"Qixi" means the "Double Seventh Night Festival," as it falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

Because this lunar year has an additional month, it has two Double Seventh Night Festivals, which fall on July 31 and August 30.

CRI news: Jinan city in east China's Shandong province organized a four-day party for the unmarried, to help them meet new friends of the opposite sex on Friday, July 28, 2006.

Comments:
Teresa says: hahah that's fantastic! they should have one here in wellington too
Jenny says: well you have the western valentine's day... but well this year the chinese have two qixi... baby boom! scary...
Teresa says: heehee woooh, our valentines day is for people who aren't single!
Jenny says: true true
Teresa says: it's the day when you realise you are single and probably feel sad you haven't received any flowers or presents
Jenny says: awwww, chinese don't feel sad, we take actions

Don't worry you missed yesterday's matchmaking events, another one in a month!

Female descendants iFemale descendants included in Confucius family tree for the first time

"In China, where men have traditionally been regarded as superior to women, and in a family in which tradition is strictly observed, it is of great significance that female descendants of Confucius will now be included in the family tree," said Liu Shifan, Vice President of the International Confucius Association.

The current project to trace Confucius' genealogy began in 1996 and is the fifth of its kind. But this time, female descendants will be included, and their names will be written in the same size as their male counterparts. The names of the female descendants' husbands will be printed next to them and marked in smaller characters. If the children of female descendants carry the surname Kong, they will also be included in the genealogy.

Pang Pu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), says it is obvious that Confucius was prejudiced towards women. Confucius said that it is "the women and the small that are difficult to deal with". Apart from physiological differences, the traditional reason women were discriminated against was the belief that following their marriage, they were no longer family.

However, some descendants have mixed feeling about the inclusion of female family members. Kong Dewei explained that in some places, female descendants' names do not appear in the family tree because it is tradition to only record the names of the males. A lot of people cling to the idea that a married daughter is like "spilt water". Female descendants will not be regarded as Confucius' offspring. Generally speaking, except in some rural areas, most of Confucius' descendants include females in the family tree.

This family tree is a vital part of China's traditional culture. Records of Confucius' genealogy have been maintained for 2000 years, and may be regarded as work of art in terms of style, content and collection. The International Confucius Association believes that Confucius' genealogy is a unique branch of Chinese traditional culture, and has crucial value in research on anthropology, demology clan and genealogy studies. (More)

Well I've never seen my family tree although I'm pretty sure we have one. They decided that I didn't have to see it since I’m not in it anyway. Well, I still know Hu I am, so who cares!

Confucius says, "Only the women and the small are difficult to deal with." That's right. Words of wisdom. Remember that, won't you?

Cabbage-CN-2008-1234?

Chinese vegetable experts have recently submitted their “Olympics Vegetable Safe Supply System Proposal” to the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee.

The Proposal suggests that all vegetables be tagged with a unique identity code once they start to grow in the farms, classified, quality-checked, information-filed, processed and packed in the Delivery Center, and then delivered to the Olympics Center kitchens. If there is a "safety incident" the vegetable's file can be immediately checked and its origins traced.


News sources:
English: Reuters (tagged as “Oddly Enough”, haha!)
Chinese: The Beijing News

China launches portal website on Chinese learning

China launched a website, www.linese.com, on Saturday to offer learning courses of Mandarin Chinese online to meet the surging demand of Chinese learning around the world.

"The website features multimedia technologies including online interactive courses, virtual communities, blogs and pod casts," said Zheng Zhongxiu who is in charge of the website.

If users log onto the website, they enter a virtual community sets in a traditional Beijing residential courtyard where registered users can communicate with each other and learn Chinese through the specially designed games.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show more than 30 million people worldwide are learning Chinese and more than 2,500 universities in 100 countries and regions offer Chinese courses. (Xinhua)

Hao hao xue xi, tian tian xiang shang!