Valentine's Day of Li Ethnic Group

Overview & Legendary Origins

The March 3rd Festival of the Li nationality（黎族三月三）is the grandest annual gathering for the Li people, falling on the third day of the third lunar month. Celebrations are usually held in open rubber forests, where dense foliage forms a natural canopy and thick fallen leaves carpet the ground, creating a cool and tranquil atmosphere. This festival is also widely regarded as the local Love Festival, a traditional occasion for young people to seek their life partners freely. Two touching legends account for its origin.

First Legend

In ancient times, the Li communities along the Canghua River were hit by a catastrophic flood. Only a young couple survived by drifting on a huge gourd ladle and finally landed at Birdnest Mountain. After the flood receded, they got married on the third day of the third lunar month. The couple worked diligently, supported each other through hardships, and raised offspring, making the Li nationality thrive and multiply. Later generations honored them as ancestors and held grand commemorative activities on March 3rd every year.

Second Legend

Long ago, on Birdnest Mountain at the border of Changjiang and Dongfang counties, there stood a large stone house shaped like a boat, a typical form of traditional Li dwellings. A beautiful Li girl once turned into a stone statue of the Goddess of Mercy here. On March 3rd the next year, a group of young lovers took shelter from rain and thunderstorms inside the stone building, and the gate closed suddenly amid peals of thunder. From then on, people celebrated this day to pray for the Goddess of Mercy’s blessing, hoping their descendants would be blessed with good looks and happy lives.

Festival Activities & Romantic Customs

On festival days, people of all ages dress in their finest costumes. They carry traditional cakes, Zongzi (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves) and fish as sacrificial offerings to worship the Goddess of Mercy at the cave entrance.

After the worship ceremony, young people gather at the activity venue to take part in various folk sports, including archery, pole climbing, wrestling, tug-of-war and swinging. As night falls, numerous bonfires are lit one after another. Young men hold up umbrellas, while the silver and shell ornaments worn by young women glisten brightly in the firelight.

Soft lyrical love songs gradually turn bold and unrestrained. Pairs of lovers quietly walk away from the bonfire gatherings. Young men hang ear bells on their beloved girls and insert deer-bone hairpins into their hair buns. In return, girls tie elaborately woven colorful sashes around young men’s waists. They make a solemn promise to meet again on the next March 3rd and never leave before seeing one another. Given its close connection with courtship and marriage, the festival earns the name of the Li people’s love festival.

Relevant Marriage Traditions

The Li people follow the system of monogamy, and intermarriage within the same clan is strictly prohibited.

When children grow up, they will live in separate private chambers called Long Gui (隆闺). Young men and women enjoy full freedom to date here. They play the nose xiao (a traditional wind instrument，鼻箫) and stringed instruments, and sing love songs to find their ideal partners. When a couple decides to marry, they need to obtain consent from both sides’ parents. In some Li settlements, there still remains the custom that a newly married wife continues to live at her natal home for a period of time after the wedding.