Qixi Tribute
Qixi Tribute (Chinese:七夕贡案; pinyin:) is an important and necessary part of annual celebration in Qixi Festival (Chinese: 七夕節) or Qiqiao Festival (Chinese: 乞巧節). Based on the mythology about The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, Qixi Tribute is a derivative of their love meeting. It is one of the most popular customs of the Han Chinese in Dongguan, Guangdong province, especially in Wangniudun, a town in Dongguan city. Every year the government of Wangniudun holds a night-long Qixi festival celebration. Plenty of local people or tourists come Wangniudun to share the happiness of celebration. History. Qixi Festival  (Qiqiao Festival) is an annual event on 7th day of the lunar 7th month in Chinese calendar, celebrating the love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. Seeing that the Weaver girl is the youngest sister of seven fairies, she is also called "the Seventh Sister". Young girls in China are accustomed to worship the Seventh Sister in order to pray for their true love. In every year, not only young girls but also boys, the elder and children are fond of taking part in this social activity. In order to show their worship to the Weaver Girl—the  youngest sister of Seven Goddesses, almost each family holds the ceremony. Firstly, the family makes preparation with abundant tributes like melon, apples and some desserts. Young girls like to make some handicrafts on their own to show their eager to the Weaver Girl. Then the family places a table in the front yard under the sky aiming to show their great respect to the goddess. At the same time, the whole family share the food and blessing together. Apart from worship the Weaver Girl, people are fond of showing their respectation to other six goddesses, so worshiping the Seven Goddesses  becomes a regular custom. Development. One of the famous custom is "the Seven Goddesses Worship", which can date back to Five Dynasties (AD. 907-960) in China. It is always held at the night of July 6 in Chinese calendar. Wangniudun has been having an accustomed custom—making Qixi tribute, worshiping the Seven Goddesses. This activity once discontinued during Culture Revolution (1967-1977), and regained in the early of Chinese Economic Reform (December, 1978--). A group of villagers organized the activity—making the Qixi tribute on Qixi Festival. Gradually, more and more villagers took part in the activity. They worked  together with folk artists, assuring the forms of Qixi tribute with some crops grown in local, a river region in Dongguan. From then on, Qixi festival celebration, as well as Qixi tribute, has been prosperous social activity in Wangniudun, Dongguan or even in Southern China. Ingredient. Local craftsmen in Wangniudun are skillful and intellectual to make their tributes. Their ingredients are accessible, which are also environmental-friendly. For instance, waste like foamed plastic, bamboo stick, woolen yarn, parget and so on in daily life. And some kinds of crops are the main ingredients, such as cereal straw, garlic husk and  so on. Craftsmen are used to making chrysanthemum by rice, making lotus flower by garlic husks, making wintersweet flower by shell of pistachio , making cherry blossom by red melon seed and making lamp by eggshell. Craftsmen are creative to add plastic bead, plastic sheet, colorful paper, colorful cloth and so on as ingredients, aiming to make exquisite Qixi tributes to help people to show their great worship to the Seven Goddesses. Form. Sculpture, embroidery, drawing and hand-making are the main forms of Qixi tribute. Tool. Making Qixi tribute needs to use the tools: scissor, plane, drawknife, ruler, chisel, brush , mallet, nail, abrasive paper. Production Steps. Plan and Design. The theme of Qixi Tribute is always relative to fairy tales and rural customs. As soon as the theme is decided, characters, scene and story is about to design. Ingredient Preparation. The ingredients are collected from daily life, such as some wastes and crops, which are all environmental friendly. As the development of science, some modern stuff like chromatic lamp is used in the tribute. Thanks to this modern stuff, Qixi tribute becomes more attractive and colorful. Meanwhile, Qixi tribute is an emblem of tradition and modernization. Cooperation. The whole table  of tribute is handmade, with the form of sculpture, embroidery, drawing and some other skills. In order to produce a table of Qixi tribute, dozens of craftmen have to spend several months working hard on it together. Process of Celebration. Qixi tribute usually can be divided into five parts, and each part is endowed with different blessing. Preparation of Tea, White Spirits and Food（茶酒齋飯）. The first part is preparing tea, white spirits and some vegetarian food（茶酒齋飯）. These are necessities in every Chinese worship ceremony, such as Spring Festival, Qingming Festival and Mid-autumn Festival. In Qixi Festival, this preparation is  on behalf of the invitation to the seven goddesses to share it. Dragon Dance and Lion Dance（龍獅賀節）. The second part is dragon dance and lion dance（龍獅賀節）. Craftsmen usually model dragon, phoenix, lion, qilin and other Chinese mascots in exquisite size. These mascots are not stiff but are vivid, expressing the scene of dragon dance and lion dance. The dances also play an important role in Chinese festival celebration and are helpful to create a joyous atmosphere. Produce and Harvests（五穀豐登）. The third part is produce and harvests（五穀豐登）. Craftsmen are accustomed to make an abundant harvest by rice, red beans, green beans , corns, peanuts and other grains, which symbolizes that people can get a wealthy year. Meanwhile, craftsmen make seven flowers, seven fruits, seven pairs of embroidered shoes, seven sets of desks and chairs and seven garments in hand for seven goddesses. It implies the sharing mortal happiness with gods. Love Story Across the Milky Way (鵲橋相會). The fourth part is the annual meeting of the cowherd and the weaver girl (the Seventh Sister) across the Milky Way (鵲橋相會). It reappears the touching scene of the loving couple, showing the beautiful happiness and expectation to the immortal love. Burning Incense and Worshiping  (拜祭香燭). The fifth part is burning incense and worshiping (拜祭香燭). With a table of well-prepared tributes, people hole the ceremony in front of the table at eleven o’clock on July 6 in Chinese lunar calendar. It is on behalf of the start of Qixi Festival. Production Scale. The production scale of Qixi tribute is classified to three kinds: family group, union of seven families, and collective cooperation. Family Group. The first one is family group. Every family make some exquisite tributes on their own, and set a traditional big square table (八仙桌, usually dines eight persons) to place the  tributes on it. According to family group, the scale is small so that the tributes is simple but various. Union of Seven Families. The second one is union style of seven families. They have to set more than one big square tables to worship the Seven Goddesses. Due to the large production scale, tribute's forms are varied and its amount is large, which can present colorful, abundance details about the love story and mortal's lives. Collective Cooperation. The third one is collective cooperation, which is the largest production scale. The village head calls up his villagers together to  buy a pigling. And every family takes turns to feed the pigling in several days. In the past time, when the pig became bigger near the Qixi Festival, the villagers would sell the pig out to earn some money as the fund in making Qixi tributes. But nowadays, instead of selling out, the pig is killed on July 6, before the day of Qixi Festival, to worship the Seven Goddesses as the offering. After the ceremony, the pork will be distributed to every family in the village. A craftsman Huang Wenzheng(黃文正) said that nothing is more valuable than sharing the  happiness together. Seeing for the biggest scale of Qixi tributes, collective cooperation makes people work together with lot of creativity and fun, which is beneficial to creating colorful and abundant kinds of tributes. Regional Celebration. Although worshiping the Seventh Sister is an accustomed activity, a slight difference is within different places. Guangzhou. In Guangzhou, before Qixi Festival, young girls who do not get married make different kinds of flower, fruit, lady, implement, palace and other festival objects by colored paper, sesame seeds and rice flour. Meanwhile, the girls grow green beans to about two inches tall, and it is called  worshiping the immortal plant(拜仙菜). After setting the tributes, the girls burn incense and light up the oil lamp in the middle of the immortal plant, bowing down toward the sky which is called Welcome the Goddess(迎仙). Dongguan. Wangniudun（望牛墩）. Qixi Festival Celebration has been held every Qixi Festival, which becomes a brand of Wangniudun. Plenty of activities are appealing to thousands of local people and tourists to take part in the celebration. In 2016, Qixi Festival Celebration was held on August 8 to 10 in Wangniudun. It covers three main activities within nine items. 1. Romantic Meeting on Qixi Festival (1 ) Romantic encounter—let tourists leave their memories of love on the photo gallery. (2) Blessing with Lotus Lamp—Lotus lamp is a traditional custom in the region of rivers, and let tourists place their blessings with lotus lamp and set free on the river. (3) 3D Technology—make some bread or pancakes with romantic patterns for tourists to taste. 2. Folk Custom Exhibition (1) Cultural Tribute Exhibition—21 villages in Wangniudun make their own special Qixi tributes to compete with each other. And their tributes are placed in the square for tourists to enjoy. (2) Blessing Night—Worshiping the Seven Goddesses  is performed in the way of artistic folk show. (3) Folk Custom Exhibition about The Region of Rivers—In the local museum, Qixi festival culture, Dragon-Boat culture, Farming Culture in region of rivers are displaced. 3. Happiness Share (1) Happiness Photo Collection—collect the photo of couple, family and others with the topic of love in the society. (2) Story Writing Contest—On the based on the love story of the cowherd and the weaver girl, everyone can create a new modern love story. (3) Love Concert—local bands and singers are invited to the celebration to perform the  love songs. Zhongtang（中堂鎮）. In Guozhou village（郭洲村）, some women are used to making flowers by hand with iron wire. Chashan（茶山鎮）. People are fond of buying a decorated flower basket to worship the Seven Goddesses. The flowers are lilies, roses and five other different kinds of flowers. Wanjiang Subdistrict（萬江街道）. Apart from women can worship the Seven Goddesses, men can also worship the cowherd wishing to find their turn love. Achievement. In 2012, the tenth Chinese Folk Literature and Art Pediment Award was held in Haikou, Hainan Province. The Qixi tribute “the destiny of mortal and immortal” made by Wangniudun's craftsmen got  the Folk Craft Art Award. Wangniudun is famous for its Qixi tribute and the atmosphere of Qixi Festival. So Wangniudun was given the title of “the Home of Qiqiao Folk Art in Guangdong Province”, “the home of Qiqiao Art in China”, and Qiqiao Festival was listed into the Second batch of the Intangible Culture Heritage Protection Project in Guangdong Province. Wangniudun's Qixi tributes are collected by Guangdong Museum, Dongguan Exhibition Center and other museums. At the same time, Wangniudun works hard to develop its famous brand of Qixi Tribute to organize various activities for society, such as Qixi festival  celebration, Qixi Culture Park and so on. The town also build websites and online games, make films about Qixi Festival.