Renri: Human Day and the Goddess Who Made Us All

The seventh day of the Chinese New Year is a quiet, contemplative festival — one that turns the gaze of celebration inward, away from firecrackers and feasts, toward a profound question: What does it mean to be human? This day is called Renri (人日, Rén Rì), "Human Day" or "People's Day," and according to one of the oldest creation myths in Chinese culture, it is the day on which human beings were made. It is, in a sense, the birthday of everyone.

The story of Renri comes from the "Questions of Heaven" (天问, Tiān Wèn), a poetic masterpiece by the ancient scholar Qu Yuan (340–278 BCE), and from the Han Dynasty text Han Shu, but its fullest telling comes from the Book of Miscellanies (《问俗录》) and the writings of the Eastern Han scholar Dong Xun. According to these ancient sources, the creation of the world was not the work of a single day but a deliberate, sequential act carried out by the great goddess Nüwa (女娲). And in this story, humans were not the first thing created — they were the last, the crown of the whole sequence.

The Seven Days of Creation

In the beginning, the world was formless and empty. Nüwa, the goddess of creation, set to work. But she did not make everything at once. She created the world in a careful order, bringing forth one form of life each day, each more complex and more refined than the last. The sequence, recorded in ancient texts, goes like this:

On the first day, Nüwa created the chicken (鸡). On the second day, she created the dog (狗). On the third day, she created the sheep (羊, sometimes translated as goat). On the fourth day, she created the pig (猪). On the fifth day, she created the cow (牛, sometimes the ox). On the sixth day, she created the horse (马). On the seventh day, she created human beings (人).

Thus the seventh day of the first lunar month became Renri — Human Day — the birthday of the human race. According to some versions of the myth, Nüwa created humans by kneading yellow clay with her own hands, carefully shaping each figure. But the work was slow, and the world was vast. Growing impatient, she took a vine, dipped it into the mud, and flung it across the land. Wherever the drops of clay fell, human beings sprang up. The ones she had shaped by hand became the noble and the wealthy; the ones flung from the vine became the common people. (This detail has a wry, slightly subversive humor — it suggests that even the gods grew tired of their work, and that the hierarchy of wealth and birth is, in the end, a matter of mud.)

What is striking about this creation story is its humility. In many traditions, humans are created first, the masters of all other life. In the Chinese myth, humans come last, after the animals. We are not the owners of creation but its culmination — and its dependents. The chicken, the dog, the sheep, the pig, the cow, the horse: these are the creatures that sustain human life. They give us eggs, meat, milk, wool, labor, and companionship. Nüwa made them first, the myth implies, because humans cannot survive without them. We are the newest and most vulnerable of the creatures, and our birthday is also a day to remember our dependence on the living world that preceded us.

The Seven- Vegetable Soup

If Renri is the birthday of humanity, then it must be celebrated with a birthday meal. And the signature dish of Renri is a remarkable one: seven-vegetable soup (七菜羹, qī cài gēng), a savory broth made from seven different green vegetables, one for each day of creation.

The tradition is strongest in southern China, particularly in Guangdong, Fujian, and among overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. In Guangdong, the dish is often called "seven-vegetable congee" (七菜粥) or, in Cantonese, "chat choi yuk". Each of the seven vegetables is chosen for its symbolic meaning, and often its name is a homophone for good fortune. For example, celery (芹菜, qín cài) sounds like diligence (勤, qín). Garlic chives (韭菜, jiǔ cài) sound like long-lasting (久, jiǔ). Coriander (香菜, xiāng cài) carries the character for fragrance (香). Spring onion (葱, cōng) sounds like intelligence (聪, cōng). Lettuce (生菜, shēng cài) sounds like generating wealth (生财, shēng cái).

By eating these seven vegetables together on the seventh day, the family symbolically consumes the virtues of diligence, longevity, intelligence, and prosperity — a meal that is also a wish for the year ahead. The soup is light and clean, a gentle counterpoint to the rich, oily feasts of the New Year's first days. It is, in a sense, the moment when the festival turns from indulgence back toward health and simplicity.

In Malaysia and Singapore, the tradition has evolved into a dish called "seven-color raw fish" (七彩鱼生, qī cǎi yú shēng), or Yee Sang, in which strips of raw fish are tossed high in the air with colorful vegetables and sweet-sour sauces while everyone at the table shouts auspicious wishes — the higher the toss, the greater the fortune.

The Rensheng: Ornaments of Human Day

In ancient times, Renri was celebrated with another beautiful custom: the making of rensheng (人胜, rén shèng), ornate headdresses and hairpins crafted from colored paper, silk, and gold foil. The word sheng (胜) refers to a specific shape — a diamond or lozenge — that was an ancient symbol of victory and auspiciousness. A rensheng was a "human victory ornament," a delicate piece of wearable art shaped like a human figure or an interlocking pattern of sheng shapes.

On Renri, women and girls would craft these ornaments and wear them in their hair or pin them to their clothing. Some rensheng were extraordinarily intricate, featuring tiny paper-cut human figures, flowers, and animals, all joined together in lacy patterns. The Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) poet Li Bai wrote of Renri: "On Human Day, the silk blossoms are cut and worn." The emperor himself would bestow rensheng ornaments on his ministers as a mark of favor on this day.

Though the rensheng tradition has largely faded, it survives in the custom of cutting paper decorations for the New Year and in the elaborate paper-cutting arts still practiced across China. It is a reminder that the celebration of humanity was once marked not just with food but with beauty and craftsmanship — with the making of small, delicate things to honor the small, delicate miracle of being human.

Climbing High to Honor the Day

Another ancient Renri custom was climbing to a high place — a hill, a tower, a city wall — and writing or reciting poetry. The Tang Dynasty poet Gao Shi wrote perhaps the most famous Renri poem, addressed to his friend Du Fu: "On Human Day, my thoughts are cut with longing. I think of you, my friend, far away, and wonder if you too are gazing at the same sky." The custom of ascending on Renri had a dual meaning: it was a way of gaining perspective, of looking out over the world that Nüwa had made, and a way of connecting with friends and loved ones across distance, knowing that they, too, were human beings sharing the same birthday.

There was also a folk belief that the weather on Renri predicted the fortune of humanity for the year. If the seventh day was bright and clear, it was a sign of peace, health, and good harvests. If it was stormy or gloomy, it was a warning of trouble. In some regions, families would observe the sky on the morning of Renri and make plans for the year accordingly.

The Birthday of Everyone

What makes Renri special among festivals is its universality. Most birthdays honor one person. Renri honors all of us. It is a day to reflect on the shared condition of being human — our fragility, our creativity, our dependence on the animals and plants that Nüwa made before us, our connection to every other human being on earth. In a New Year season often dominated by family, by lineage, by the closed circle of one's own household, Renri opens the circle outward: today, everyone is family, because today is everyone's birthday.

So on the seventh day of the New Year, whether you eat a bowl of seven-vegetable soup, cut a paper ornament, climb a hill to write a poem, or simply pause for a moment to consider the strange and wonderful fact of your own existence, you are taking part in one of the oldest celebrations of humanity in all of culture. Nüwa shaped us from clay, the myth says — or perhaps flung us from a vine. Either way, here we are. And that, on Renri, is enough to celebrate.