Qingming Jie April 5

During Qingming, families Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors to clean the burial sites, pray to their ancestors and make ritual offerings. Offerings usually include traditional dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional respect for one's ancestors in the culture chinese. The Qingming Festival has been observed by the Chinese for over 2,500 years, although observance has changed significantly.

The festival originated from the Cold Food or Hanshi festival which remembered Jie Zitui, a nobleman from the state of Jin (modern Shanxi) during the spring and autumn period. Amid Li Ji's troubles, he followed his master Prince Chong'er in 655 BC to exile among the Di tribes and around China. Supposedly, he even once cut the flesh from his own thigh to provide soup for his lord. In 636 BC, Duke Mu of Qin invaded Jin and enthroned Chong'er as its duke, where he was generous in rewarding those who helped him in times of need.

Due to either his own high-mindedness or the Duke's negligence, however, Jie was long ignored. He eventually retreated to the forest around Mount Mian with his elderly mother. The duke went to the forest in 636 BC but could not find them. He then ordered his men to set fire to the forest in order to force Jie out. When Jie and his mother were killed instead, the duke was overcome with remorse and erected a temple in his honor.

Shanxi residents subsequently worshiped Jie as an immortal and avoided lighting fires for a month in the depths of winter, a practice so harmful to children and the elderly that the region's leaders attempted in vain to ban it for centuries. A compromise eventually developed where it was limited to 3 days around the Qingming solar term in mid-spring.

The Qingming Festival is the time when Chinese people traditionally visit ancestral tombs to sweep them. This tradition was legislated by emperors who built majestic imperial tombstones for each dynasty. For thousands of years, Chinese imperials, nobility, peasantry and merchants gathered together to remember the lives of the deceased, to visit their tombstones to practice Confucian filial piety by sweeping the tombs, to visit the cemeteries, cemeteries or in modern urban cities. 

In some places, people believe that grave sweeping is only allowed during this festival, as they believe the dead will be disturbed if sweeping is done on other days.

Young and old kneel to offer prayers in front of the tombstones of ancestors, offer burning joss in the form of incense sticks (incense sticks) and silver leaf paper (papier d'incense). incense), sweep the graves and offer food, tea, wine, wands and/or libations in memory of the ancestors. Depending on the religion of the observers, some pray to a higher deity to honor their ancestors, while others may pray directly to ancestral spirits.

These rites have a long tradition in Asia, particularly among imperialism which legislated these rituals into a national religion. They have been preserved particularly by the peasantry and are most popular with today's farmers, who believe that continued observances will ensure future fruitful harvests by calming the spirits in the other world.

Religious symbols of ritual purity, such as pomegranate and willow branches, are popular during this time. Some people carry willow branches with them on Qingming or stick willow branches on their doors and/or front doors. There are similarities to palm fronds used on Palm Sunday in Christianity; both are religious rituals. Additionally, the belief is that willow branches will help ward off unappeased, troubled and troubling spirits, and/or evil spirits that may wander the earthly realms of Qingming.

After gathering in Qingming to perform Confucian clan and family duties at tombstones, cemeteries or columbariums, participants spend the rest of the day on clan or family outings, before beginning plowing of spring. They often sing and dance. Qingming is also a time when young couples traditionally begin dating. Another popular thing to do is to fly kites shaped like animals or characters from Chinese opera. Another common practice is to wear flowers instead of burning paper, incense or firecrackers.

Traditionally, a family burns spiritual money (joss paper) and paper replicas of material goods such as cars, houses, telephones and paper servants. This action usually occurs during the Qingming Festival. In Chinese culture, it is believed that people still need all these things in the afterlife. Then, family members take turns to prostrate themselves three to nine times (depending on the family's adherence to traditional values) in front of the ancestors' tomb. The Kowtowing ritual in front of the grave is performed in order of patriarchal seniority within the family. 

After ancestor worship at the burial site, the entire family or clan feasts on the food and drinks they have brought for worship either at the site or in the nearby gardens of the memorial park, signifying the reunion of the family with its ancestors. Another ritual linked to the festival is the cockfight, in addition to being available in this historical and cultural context at Kaifeng Millennium City Park (Qingming Riverside Landscape Garden).