Mua Ngau

A couple of years ago, in January, I told you about an oriental mythology that has an intimate relationship to the beautiful Aglaia odorata. August is a perfect time to revisit this love story again. In China, Qixi Festival, literally "The Night of Sevens," also known as Magpie Festival, falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month on the Chinese calendar. This year, it's not today, but it will be on Wednesday, August 18. It also inspired Tanabata (aka. Shichiseki) in Japan, Chilseok in Korea, and in Vietnam as I told it in 2008. It is sometimes called Chinese Valentine's Day.

In late summer, the stars Altair and Vega are high in the night sky, and the Chinese tell the well traveled love story, of which there are many variations, of the cowherd Niulang (Vietnamese "Nguu Lang") and the fairy Zhinu (Vietnamese "Chuc Nu") . The lovestruck couple was punished by the God and separated by the Milky Way. Mean God! Mean God!

Once a year all the magpies in the world would take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge ("the bridge of magpies", Que Qiao) over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, which is the seventh night of the seventh moon.

In VietNam, the late summer rain (Vietnamese "Mua Ngau") bring flowers to this Aglaia odorata to celebrate the reunion in the heavens. That is why this tree is so happy to spectacularly display these beautiful and fragrant pin size flowers. It knows!