CRI听力:The Business of Qixi Festival

Here in China, some people are gearing up for a special day tomorrow: Qi Xi festival, or Chinese Valentine's day.

Traditionally, Qixi festival was a day for women to show off their needlepoint skills and wish for a good husband.

But in the past few years, it's been reinvented as China's answer to Valentine's day.

February 14th is a big spending spree in China.

And retailers also want to cash in on Qixi Festival.

But reports say that they're not having much success.

It seems Chinese couples are still a lot more eager to celebrate the Western Valentine's day than the Chinese one.

But I wanted to find out for myself.

So I went down to NanLuoGu alley, which is a trendy and very youth-oriented street in the centre of Beijing…and spoke to business owners and couples about what they're doing for this year's Qixi Festival.

I started at Happy Holidays clothing store.

It sells matching his-and-hers t-shirts, so obviously lovers' holidays are a big money-maker for them.

Lin Luo Luo is the owner:

"Last year at Qixi festival we made almost as much as at Valentines' day. Around Valentines' day we might have made about 100 thousand yuan, and around Qixi festival we might have made, say, 90 thousand. So it's not that big a difference. Qixi festival is definitely still not as important as Valentines' day, but I think it's getting more important. So many of my friends this year have been like, what are you doing for Qixi festival? People are talking about it all over the internet and on their microblogs. I think it's a lot better than it was two years ago.

Well as you can imagine I was pretty surprised. I'd heard this festival wasn't a big money-maker! But I went to flower shops and gift shops and pretty much everyone told me the same thing: since last year people have started getting into Qixi festival.

Another place I just had to check out was 3A07 cupcakes – their name means LOVE upside down and backwards. And the place is pink and covered in hearts.
Kong Ni owns LOVE cupcakes with her boyfriend.

And she says they've got big plans for tomorrow.

"For couples who come tomorrow night, we'll get the girls to go upstairs and relax, and we'll make the guys stay downstairs. Then we'll give the guys a flower and get them to go upstairs and give it to their girlfriends themselves. Then when they leave we'll get them to take a photo together and they can take it home as a souvenir. I think young people used to be a lot more interested in Valentine's day, but now we're slowly recovering our traditional culture. So I think young people put more importance on Qixi Festival now.

But some lovebirds don't need a festival to show they care about one another.

Here's Ms. Wang and Mr. Li.

"Her: We'll probably watch a movie and hang out together. I don't think we'll spend more money than usual – the most important thing is just being together.
Him: Of course Qixi festival is as important as Valentines' Day. Really, they're pretty much the same. Every day is the same – as far as we're concerned, every day is Qixi festival."

Awww, that's cute. Well, whatever you're doing tomorrow, I'd recommend looking up the legend behind Qixi festival. It involves fairies and cow-herders, so it's pretty much an instant winner in my books.