Tanabata: A traditional Valentine’s day

Before I start on main content of the post I want to say that many many interesting things have happened the past 2 weeks or so but I got too lazy to post them up… >.< Argh why do I keep procrastinating… And I can’t believe I’m procrastinating about procrastinating and I’ve really got to get my act up and try not to procrastinate again! xP

A week (or two?) back I began to see these things funky “ornaments” hung from the extension of the lamposts on the way to school. They were so pretty and I knew something was up and I’m glad I took pictures of them before they got dirty from the rain or from wear and tear!

….And it was only this week that I found out the reason behind all these decorations.

Today, on 7 July, is Tanabata, which means “Evening of the seventh”. My Japanese teacher told me that it sort of like an unofficial traditional version of Valentine’s Day in Japan. People of Chinese heritage would be familiar with the love story of the weaving princess and the cow herder… This, is the Japanese imported version! And let me explain this to you using my lousy drawing skills for some parts…

Basically, there once lived Orihime, a cloth weaver who weaved for her father the universe and Hikoboshi, a cow herder who herded cows in heaven.

Then one day the both of them met and they fell instantly in love, and married each other.

BUT once married, Orihime no longer weaved the cloth, and Hikoboshi no longer herded the cows and they strayed all over heaven.

(which comes to the end of my horrible drawings and the rest is paraphrased from wikipedia )

Orihime’s father was very angry,  and separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.

AND, it didn’t rain today!

So here’s what the “ornaments” mean.

The colourful streamers (the first picture of the post) represent the strings Orihime used to weave,

…and paper strips containing wishes were tied among bamboo leaves.

From what I’ve heard, there is also a festival held today for the event (which i didn’t go to)… It was a normal festival it seemed (check out the festival post here) held at night and lots of pretty girls in yukatas! Darn it if it wasn’t for all the reports due for school… T___T

And hmm I wonder if the bamboo leaves and all the other ornaments would be removed by the next day (which is technically today) because the bamboo leaves are seriously starting to rot… =x