Qixi Festival on postage stamps

I wrote my last two Mandarin blog posts about the Qixi festival and the legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl. I wanted to round out that discussion today.

In the West, we have a few tales like Santa Clause, and the Easter Bunny that seem pervasive. St Valentine isn’t such a big deal, even though Valentine’s Day is named after him.

People who haven’t studied China much usually don’t understand just how embedded these tales are within society, and also in the language. I see old tales appearing as idioms that end up meaning something quite different to what they say.

One place that I’ve seen Qixi appearing is in postage stamps. You can see one set in the main image above.

Here’s another set:

These are more recent but note the price hasn’t changed. (Unlike our local postage prices)

2020-05-08