What You Should Know About Chingming Festival

Chingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day,Qingming Festvial, is one of the four traditional festivals in China. In the world, in addition to China, there are some countries and regions that also celebrate Chingming Festival, such as Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and so on. On May 20, 2006, the Chingming Festival declared by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China was approved by the State Council and included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
Chingming Festival is an ancient festival of the Chinese nation. It is not only a solemn festival for sweeping tombs and ancestors, but also a joyous festival for people to get close to nature, go out and enjoy the fun of spring.

Chingming Festival is a traditional major spring festival. It is a fine tradition of the Chinese nation since ancient times. It is a fine tradition of the Chinese nation since ancient times. It is not only conducive to promoting filial piety and kinship, awakening the common memory of the family, but also promoting the cohesion and identity of family members and even the nation. The Chingming Festival integrates natural solar terms and human customs. It is the unity of the right time, place and people. It fully reflects that the ancestors of the Chinese nation pursued the harmonious unity of “heaven, earth and people”, and paid attention to conforming to the right time and place and following the laws of nature. thought of.

1. Festival origins

Natural solar terms
Tomb-sweeping Day, which has both natural and humanistic connotations, is not only one of the “24 solar terms”, but also a traditional ancestor worship festival. “Twenty-four solar terms” is the product of the ancient farming civilization. It is related to the time of stems and branches and gossip, and has a long historical origin. “Twenty-four solar terms” not only play a guiding role in agricultural production, but also affect the clothing, food, housing and transportation of the ancients, and even cultural concepts.
Cultural connotation
Tomb-sweeping Day is the most grand and grand ancestor worship festival in the Chinese nation. Tomb-sweeping Day embodies the national spirit, inherits the sacrificial culture of Chinese civilization, and expresses people’s moral feelings of respecting their ancestors and following records. Tomb-sweeping is the “tomb sacrifice”, which is called “respect for the time of thinking” to the ancestors. The Chingming Festival has a long history, originating from ancestral beliefs and spring ritual customs in ancient times. According to the research results of modern anthropology and archaeology, there are two most primitive beliefs of human beings, one is the belief in heaven and earth, and the other is the belief in ancestors. According to archaeological excavations, a 10,000-year-old tomb has been discovered at the Yingde Qingtang site in Guangdong, which is the earliest identifiable burial type in China, indicating that the ancient ancestors had a clear conscious tomb behavior and etiquette concepts 10,000 years ago. The rituals and customs of “tomb offerings” have a long historical origin. The “tomb offerings” during the Chingming Festival are the synthesis and sublimation of traditional spring festival customs.

2. Heritage Development

The Ching Ming Festival is a major spring festival for the Chinese nation. Corresponding to the Ching Ming Chun Festival are the Chongyang Autumn Festival and the Spring and Autumn Festival, which have existed since ancient times. Since ancient times, the Chinese nation has the etiquette concept of respecting ancestors and chasing the future with caution. The Chingming Festival has a long history. It has changed with the development of the times, and has gradually integrated the customs of the Cold Food Festival and the Shangsi Festival. In ancient times, the customs of the north and the south of my country were different. Before the Tang Dynasty, the sacrifices to the tombs in the north of my country were mainly on the Cold Food Festival and the Cold Clothing Festival. Judging from the records of the “Book of Rites” and other documents, before the Tang Dynasty, there was no regulation of tomb sweeping on the Chingming Festival in northern my country. The Tang Dynasty was a period of fusion of tomb sacrificial customs in the north and south of my country. It followed the Chingming tomb sacrificial customs and expanded to all parts of the country. After the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival gradually declined because it was close to the Chingming Festival. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Chingming Festival rose to the status of replacing the Cold Food Festival, and integrated the customs of the Cold Food Festival such as prohibition of fire and cold food.
The Chingming Festival, which integrates the two festival customs of Hanshi and Shangsi, formed a festival in the Song and Yuan Dynasties centered on ancestor worship and tomb-sweeping, and integrated the prohibition of fire and the customs of cold food with the customs of Shangsi outing. The custom of fire and cold food was transferred to Chingming Festival, and some parts of northern my country still retain the custom of banning fire and eating cold food on Chingming Festival. The Ming and Qing Dynasties generally inherited the old system of the previous generation, and the Chingming Festival still adheres to and develops its status as an indispensable festival in spring life. During the period of the Republic of China, on the Chingming Festival, apart from the original customs such as tomb sweeping and green outing, tree planting was also determined as a regular item. This is actually just an official recognition of the long-standing folk tree planting custom.

3. 2022 Chingming Festival holiday

According to the Chinese government website, the 2022 Chingming Festival holiday schedule is as follows: April 3 (Sunday) to April 5 (Tuesday), a total of 3 days off. Work on April 2 (Saturday).