Qing Ming Day Festival

The Qingming -- clear and bright -- Festival falls 104 days after the winter solstice (or 15 days before the Spring Equinox), usually around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar or April 4 in a leap year.

Qingming is a day for remembering and honoring the deceased. On this day, young and old come to their family tombs to clear away weeds, add fresh soil and offer sacrifices of tea, wine and flowers. The ritual ends in prayers, burning paper money and a respectful koutou to departed family members. As cremations are now more commonplace than burials, these customs are most popularly practiced in China's rural areas.

Long a statutory public holiday in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, Qingming became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008, where it had been incorporated into Arbor Day until that holiday was moved to March 12, 1979 of the solar calendar.

Tang Emperor Xuanzong created the Qingming festival in 732, reportedly to reduce the expense of elaborate ancestor-worshipping ceremonies that had hitherto been held throughout the year.

Chong'er, Duke Wen of the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) instituted as an act of penitence the Hanshi (cold food) festival that originally preceded Qingming. The duke had laid the plan to set a fire in the home of his personal friend and servant Jie Zhitui in the expectation it would make him return to the court, but it backfired and both Zhitui and his mother perished in the flames.

The Hanshi festival forbade the lighting of fires to cook food, hence its nickname Cold Food Festival. The Hanshi became combined with the Qingming festival three centuries ago, but has since fallen off. Eating cold dishes, however, remains a main aspect of traditional Qingming activities.

Family Outing
Qingming also brings families the opportunity to enjoy the warm spring weather and newly green scenery, and is traditionally the time for young couples to start courting.Family outing activities include playing on swings considered good for children's health and spirit of adventure, cuju a form of football dating back to the Song Dynasty, and kite flying. The emphasis on healthy exercise at Qingming is to offset any possible ill effects of eating cold food.

Willow Rituals
A commonly observed Qingming tradition is that of carrying willow branches, hanging them from the front gate or door or even wearing willow buds in the hair. The custom originates in the old belief that willow warns off the evil spirits abroad at Qingming, and prevent plagues of epidemic disease.

Planting Trees
Qingming is also the name of one of China's 24 solar terms. It signals warmer temperatures, higher rainfall and hence the start of spring plowing and sowing.

(Source: baike.baidu.com/ Translated by womenofchina.cn)