Yesterday was the Japanese festival of Tanabata (七夕), and I thought I would sit down and write a post about this unfamiliar holiday. That’s right you’re going to learn something today. Much like with my students, I’ve lured you in with fun and games and now I’m going to force you to learn. Prepare yourself for a crash course in Japanese culture. And by “crash course” I mean that I googled Tanabata after one of my teachers vaguely explained it to me in broken English.
Tanabata means the “Evening of the 7th”, because apparently Japan is the least creative country ever, and it was adopted into Japan from China in about 750 AD. Tanabata is based on the Chinese festival of Qixi, a word which I’m fairly sure I could attempt to say 100 times and still never pronounce correctly. Qixi, in a similarly uncreative manner, translates as “The Festival to Plead for Skills”…
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