If you need a surefire date night option this month, Lan Su Chinese Garden is the place to go.
For two weekends in August, Lan Su will host the first Qixi Festival, also known as Chinese Valentine’s Day. Lovers can stroll through the gardens on August 16, 17, 23 and 24, enjoying live music and glowing lotus lanterns.
Venus Sun, Lan Su’s vice president of culture and community, says the inspiration for the summer night event came to her last fall on a business trip to Suzhou, a city outside Shanghai known for its classical gardens. An evening event in the Master of the Nets Garden there included LED-lit hairpins, white lanterns and musical performances.
“It was beautiful and romantic,” says Sun. “We wanted to recreate that feeling here at Lan Su in Portland.”
The Chinese Valentine’s Day events are the renowned botanical garden’s first major program since it partnered with city officials to erect a chain-link fence around the garden on August 1. The fence is intended to deter crime and protect the garden after several vandalism attacks this summer. Executive director Elizabeth Nye wrote to members on August 2 that she had reported the vandalism attacks as hate crimes and described them as “targeted.”
The Qixi Festival (pronounced “chee-chee”) is based on the ancient Chinese legend of the star-crossed lovers Zhinü, the weaver, and Niulang, the cowherd. Zhinü’s mother was so angry about their union that she used a hairpin to draw a line between the two lovers, which became the Milky Way. After that, they could only see each other once a year: on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which this year falls on August 10. According to legend, a magical bridge of magpies forms across the Milky Way so that Zhinü and Niulang can see each other on that one day.
At Lan Su, visitors can write love messages on magpie-shaped pieces of paper, which will be used to create the legendary Magpie Bridge during the event. There will be a bar in the garden of the Yun Shui Teahouse. Calligraphers and artists will be designing individual paper fans.
GO: Summer Night’s Garden at Lan Su Chinese Garden, 239 NW Everett St. 503-228-8131, lansugarden.org. 7:30-9:30 p.m., Aug. 16, 17, 23 and 24. $10-$24.
