🇨🇳How does China mark Tanabata and Qixi?

七夕节

Local date

August 8, 2027

When is it?

The seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar.

China recognises Qixi, but as heritage rather than as a holiday. In 2006 the State Council published the first national list of intangible cultural heritage — 518 items, of which seventy fall under folk custom. The Qixi Festival is entry 452, submitted by the Ministry of Culture, sitting among Lunar New Year at 449, Qingming at 450, Duanwu at 451, Mid-Autumn at 453 and Double Ninth at 454. Open the Measures on Holidays for National Annual Festivals and Commemorative Days, as amended by State Council Order No. 795 of 2024, and the picture reverses: the days off for all citizens are New Year's Day, Lunar New Year, Qingming, Labour Day, Duanwu, Mid-Autumn and National Day; partial days go to Women's Day, Youth Day, Children's Day and Army Day; and Article 5 names a further batch — 7 February, 30 May, 7 July, 3 September, 18 September, Teachers' Day, Nurses' Day, Journalists' Day, Arbor Day — as days that carry no time off. Qixi does not appear even on that list of explicitly non-holidays. The trace it leaves is somewhere else. Couples like to register their marriages on Qixi, which turns "will the registry be open" into an annual question. In 2024 Qixi fell on Saturday 10 August; on 5 August the Ministry of Civil Affairs' social affairs department answered a public query by saying that local civil affairs bureaus are encouraged to meet demand and open, but that no binding requirement had been set. Because the day is not a statutory holiday, the answer is decided locally, one bureau at a time. Qixi falls on a Sunday in 2027 and a Saturday in 2028, so the question comes round twice more.