How Chinese Celebrate Valentine's Day

Saint Valentine’s Day, commonly shortened to Valentine’s Day, is an annual holiday held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions.  This traditional western holiday has a history for more than 1000 years.  The special thing on Valentine’s Day is that lovers present gift to each other to express their love and affection.  Modern Valentine’s Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.

In Chinese culture, there is an older observance related to lovers, called “The Night of Sevens” (七夕).  It is on the 7th day of the 7th month of the Chinese lunar calendar.  Nowadays in China, people celebrate The Night of Sevens Day and more and more young people also celebrate western Valentine’s Day.  Now let’s have a look about how Chinese celebrate Valentine’s Day.

In different Chinese areas, the celebrations for Valentine’s Day are a little different:
In Taiwan, lovers have a date on Valentine’s Day;
In Macao, lovers pay attention to this day.  Men send flower to women and women send chocolate;
In Hong Kong, lovers give gift to each other and go restaurant to have candlelight dinner;
In Chinese mainland, men send gift to women and have dinner together.

Recently more and more people would like write their blessing and love on “Love Wall” on internet and also make a gift for lovers by themselves (For Chinese the gift which is made by the sender is more precious and meaningful especially on this day.).  For example, some people make heart-shaped chocolate by themselves to express their love.  Many people send something which is very beautiful and amazing to their lovers, such as flower tea.   They brew the flower tea by themselves and the same time their lovers are surprise at the beautiful and magic flower tea.