Valentine's Day is a special day to give little gifts to loved ones or at least that's what some people say in the West. In Beijing it has become such a popular event with great commercial pull that exchanging flowers, candy or kisses with your beloved is not enough any more. Especially when you know other lovers may be:
Enjoying a candle-lit dinner in a nice downtown restaurant that charges 498 yuan ($62) per person with complimentary roses and chocolates;
Relaxing in a suburban spa that offers a Valentine's special of 2,880 yuan ($371), usual priced at 4,150 yuan ($535), for two, with 3.5 hours of rose-scented bath, massage and therapy.
Hanging out at a shopping mall where the cheapest lovers' rings are sold 1,199 yuan ($155) per pair .
In comparison, the Chinese version of Valentine's Day is much humbler .
Qi Xi, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, is the only Chinese festival devoted to love, celebrating the reunion in heaven of two ill-fated lovers, a cow-herder and a weaving maiden.
You only have to gaze at the night sky for them, if you know there is such a festival at all. Most Chinese people ignore it.
Unfortunately, Qi Xi is one of the national folk festivals that have been losing their traditional appeal but the country wants to do everything to revive it.
Zhao Shu, president of the Beijing Folk Artists' Association and a noted expert in Chinese cultural legacy, hopes that the Beijing Olympic Games, scheduled to open on August 8, 2008, one day after Qi Xi Festival, will help promote it as part of China's intangible cultural heritage.
UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. Qi Xi, the Spring Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival are such heritages on a national protection list.
Qi Xi fits in with the Olympic spirit of peace and friendship, and Beijing should decorate itself with many lights on the Olympic eve to spread the story of the Chinese lovers all over the world, Zhao argued in the recently published 2007 Cultural Development Report of Beijing.
He also suggests the celebrations continue through the Zhongyuan Festival to honor ancestors and the Mid-Autumn Festival, a day for family reunion, which coincides with the Summer Games and Paralympic Games respectively.
Outside China, the Zhongyuan Festival is also known as Hungry Ghosts Festival, when people from the Chinese community perform rituals and make offerings to honor the dead. Although Zhao has fallen short of justifying the inclusion of the festival in the Olympic celebrations, his school of thought may not sound too unrealistic for Olympic consideration. In Southeast Asia, prayers are often accompanied by streetside Ge Tai or variety shows and auctions to raise funds for charity.
His other suggestions include making local Land Boat dance and Taiping drum dance as part of the performances at the Olympic opening ceremony, and placing sculpture works of Cloisonn, carved lacquer and jade based on Chinese folklores in the Bird's Nest and Water Cube.
Cloisonn carved lacquer are among a dozen of Beijing's intangible cultural heritages on the national list. So is diabolo, a game in which a two-headed top is thrown up and caught with a string stretched between two sticks. It has been used to showcase the local sports tradition at various Olympic activities in the city.
The idea of promoting Chinese cultural legacy will allow the Games to have much wider effect than just economic and environmental impact. The emotional gains may include an increased awareness of Chinese culture and a massive boost to a national pride and confidence.
The delivery of a successful Games goes way beyond making people feel good during the Games.
