Qingming Festival
The Qingming Festival or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day, Ancestors' Day, the Clear Brightness Festival, or the Pure Brightness Festival), is a traditional Chinese festival observed by ethnic Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. A celebration of spring, it falls on the first day of the fifth solar term (also called Qingming) of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4, 5 or 6 April in a given year. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to their ancestors. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional reverence of one's ancestors in Chinese culture.
| Qingming | |
|---|---|
Burning paper gifts for the departed. | |
| Official name | Qingming Jie (清明节) Ching Ming Festival (清明節) Tomb Sweeping Day (掃墳節) |
| Observed by | Chinese, Chitty and Ryukyuans |
| Type | Cultural, Asian |
| Significance | Commemoration of the remembering of ancestors |
| Observances | Cleaning and sweeping of graves, ancestor worship, offering food to deceased, burning joss paper |
| Date | 15th day after March equinox (between April 4 and April 6) |
| 2023 date | 5 April |
| First time | 732 |
| Qingming Festival | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 清明節 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 清明节 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Pure Brightness Festival" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The origins of the Qingming Festival go back more than 2500 years, although the observance has changed significantly. It became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008, where it is associated with the consumption of qingtuan, green dumplings made of glutinous rice and Chinese mugwort or barley grass.
In Taiwan, the public holiday was in the past observed on 5 April to honor the death of Chiang Kai-shek on that day in 1975, but with Chiang's popularity waning, this convention is not being observed. A confection called caozaiguo or shuchuguo, made with Jersey cudweed, is consumed there.
A similar holiday is observed in the Ryukyu Islands, called Shīmī in the local language.