Tryst Once A Year
Today is the Seventh of the Lunar Seventh Month,七夕, and it is a “Valentine’s Day” of sort here in Taiwan and many other Asian countries. The folklore has it that a young “Cow Boy” 牛郎 and a “Maiden Weaver” 織女 were in deep affection with each other but somehow invited ire of the master, who, howeever was allowing them to meet once a week. Unfortunately it was wrongly conveyed to the lovers by a hapless magpie that they were allowed a tryst only on 七夕，the Seventh Eve of the Seventh month, once a year!
On summer evenings, there are three stars of Summer Triangle in the northern celestial hemisphere brightly attract our eyes. Two of the three are in Constellation Lyra, namely, Vega 織女星 and Altaire 牛郎星，16 light years apart from the other, are the main characteres of the joyous yet poignant story, celebrated each year by those who in love, vowing constancy to each other. In Japan, the 七夕 Tanabata is celebrated also on the Seventh Eve of the Seventh Month, but it is on solar July 7th after the country westernized. By the way, the Maiden Weaver Vega which shines with the bluish-white colour of a diamond, will be our Pole Star again in 120,000 years, due to tilted axis and rotation of our planet, as it was some 200,000 years ago.