CHINA - As Chinese lovers prepare gifts for their partners to celebrate the upcoming Qixi Festival, or Chinese Valentine's Day, which falls on Aug 16 this year,
a tide of opposition intended to interfere is gaining momentum online.

An online activity, which started on Monday and will last until Aug 17, is saying no to Chinese lovers' much-anticipated festival and aims to break up as many relationships as possible.

"Qixi Festival, lovers go to hell" has attracted 7,600 participants as of 14:30 on Friday.

"Qixi Festival is approaching. Lovers, could you please not show off your happiness? There are single people, could you please be considerate to them?" said the introduction of the activity posted online.

The activity's organizer said she is quite sick of the overwhelming discussions about the festival, so she planned to invite netizens to express something different.

Participants expressed their anger over people in love, and suggested plenty of methods to cause unpleasantness or inconvenience to them, such as separating them in a theater by buying out film tickets of odd numbers and walking between them when they are hand in hand on the streets.

But saying is one thing and doing is another. Most participants say they hope lovers will have bad break-ups, but don't seem to have any actual intent to carry out what they posted.

"I don't think people will put what they said into practice, and having fun by discussing this topic is enough," the organizer said in the Shanghai Morning Post.

The organizer, who is not single at all, said her aim in starting the activity was just for fun. She said this was just an alternative to the common activities for Qixi Festival.

The reason that it became so popular is that the increasing commercial elements of Qixi Festival and some lovers' public displays of affection have put great pressure on some singles, making them feel unwanted or unhappy, said Leng Li, an expert at a marriage consulting firm in Shanghai.

Leng said it is common for people to be jealous of those in love in a society that is full of life pressures, but making other people's lives unpleasant is unwise.

Qixi Festival falls on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. It originated from a tale of the seventh daughter of the Emperor of Heaven and her lover, an orphaned cowherd, who were separated by the Emperor, who disapproved of their union. The girl was forced to move to the star Vega, and the cowherd to the star Altair. They were allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month - Chinese Valentine's Day.