Qingming - April 4 or 5, the Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day, ancestor veneration, and the Cold Food Festival

Qingming (also Tomb Sweeping Day) on April 4 or 5 is a Chinese festival of ancestor veneration, observed by sweeping graves, offering food, and burning paper money. A 3-day public holiday in mainland China, also observed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and the Chinese diaspora.

The one-line summary

Chinese festival of ancestor veneration on April 4 or 5, observed by sweeping ancestral graves, offering food, and burning paper offerings for the deceased. A 3-day public holiday in mainland China.

The Jie Zhitui legend

Qingming has origins in the Cold Food Festival (Hanshi Jie), which itself traces to a legend about Jie Zhitui, a retainer of Duke Wen of Jin (r. 636-628 BC) who followed the duke into exile and even cut a piece of flesh from his own thigh to feed him. When the duke returned to power, Jie retreated into a mountain forest rather than accept reward. The duke ordered the forest burned to force Jie out; Jie refused to leave and died in the fire with his mother. The duke was deeply remorseful and ordered that fires be forbidden on the anniversary of Jie's death, leading to the Cold Food Festival. The duke also created the Jie Mountain Forest (Mie'shan) in Jie's honour and ordered an annual sacrifice.

The Jie Zhitui story became one of the most celebrated tales of loyalty in Chinese culture. The Qinyu mountains in modern Shanxi (where Jie is said to have died) are still the centre of Cold Food Festival observance, and the day has been formally protected as a regional intangible cultural heritage.

Origin and the Tang dynasty reform

Qingming was established in the Tang dynasty (618-907) as a fixed festival on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, gradually replacing the Cold Food Festival. The Tang shift was motivated by both practical (the cold food prohibition was incompatible with daily life in the warm south) and political (the imperial court associated the new fixed date with a strong central calendar) considerations. By the Song dynasty, Qingming had become the principal spring festival of ancestor-related ritual, and Cold Food was observed as a one- or two-day lead-in.

The 24 solar terms

Qingming is one of the 24 solar terms (jieqi, 节气) of the traditional Chinese calendar, falling on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox. The 24 solar terms are a lunisolar calendar system used for agricultural planning, each tied to a specific astronomical solar longitude. Qingming is the 5th solar term and is associated with spring planting, the flowering of willows and peach trees, and the traditional weather pattern of "clear and bright."

How Qingming is observed

Family members visit ancestral graves; sweep the tomb (the literal meaning of qing ming is "clear and bright"); offer food, fruit, wine, and paper money; burn paper money and paper replicas of goods for the deceased; place fresh flowers (in modern practice); fly kites (in northern China); plant willows (in some regions); eat qingtuan, a green glutinous rice dumpling; eat cold food (in the Cold Food Festival tradition, now mostly absorbed into Qingming). For families whose ancestral graves are distant, an ancestor tablet at a home shrine is venerated.

Paper burnings and the modern regulation

The practice of burning paper money and goods for the deceased has come under regulatory pressure in mainland China on air-quality grounds. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has periodically restricted paper burning in cities during Qingming, encouraging the use of fresh flowers and digital offerings instead. Hong Kong and Taiwan maintain the tradition with less environmental restriction. The digital practice of "cloud burning" (offerings submitted through mobile apps that produce a simulated burning animation) has emerged in mainland China and Singapore as a modern alternative.

Legal status

Qingming is a 3-day public holiday in mainland China, a national holiday in Taiwan, a public holiday in Hong Kong and Macau, and a public holiday in Vietnam (where it is called Tết Hàn Thính). In Singapore and Malaysia, it is observed by the Chinese community but is not a national public holiday. It is one of the most important family observances in the Chinese calendar, on par with Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Where it is contested

Modern debates centre on three areas. First, the environmental and air-quality impact of large-scale paper burning has produced local restrictions. Second, the commercial dimension of the holiday (large tomb-cleaning services, premium offerings, cemetery plots in major cities) has prompted critique of the holiday's commodification. Third, the relationship between traditional ancestor veneration and the Chinese government's historical relationship to ancestral practice has been a low-level topic since the 1950s; the practice has been steadily restored since the reform era.

In other countries

Qingming is observed by Chinese communities worldwide, including in the Chinatowns of San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney, and Toronto. Singapore and Malaysia observe Qingming on the second Sunday after the Spring Equinox rather than the fixed April 4/5 (except when the date is a Sunday, in which case it is the following Sunday). Vietnam observes Tết Hàn Thính on the same date with similar tomb-sweeping traditions.

Qingming Festival by the numbers

Sources

• China National Tourism Administration, Qingming: mct.gov.cn
• Encyclopedia Britannica, Qingming: britannica.com
• Wikipedia, "Qingming Festival": en.wikipedia.org