Posted on: April 05, 2018 | 
| 中文
Qingming Festival (Source: The World of Chinese)
“Qingming Festival” (The Mourning Day or Tomb-sweeping Day) is an ancient traditional Chinese festival, which normally falls on the 4th to 6th of April, between spring ploughing and summer weeding. This year, the festival falls on 5th April. Since it's origin in the Zhou Dynasty, the festival is also considered as one of the 24 Solar Terms in the Chinese Lunar Calendar.
Qingming Festival is a time for Chinese families to pay respects to their ancestors, by offering sacrifices such as food and drinks, and to tidy up their gravesites. On May 20th, 2006, this festival was listed as China National Intangible Cultural Heritage. Du Mu, a famous Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty, once wrote a poem about the Qingming Festival, and it has since been considered a classic literary work:
A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day,
The mourner’s heart is going to break on his way.
Where can a wine shop be found to drown his sad hours?
A cowherd points to a cot ’mid apricot flowers.
(Translated by Prof. Xu Yuanchong)
For Chinese people, the unique atmosphere depicted in this poem is the most memorable characteristic of the day. “Qingming” derives its name from the fifth Solar Term of the traditional East Asian lunar Calendar. Among all of the 24 solar terms, only “Qingming” is regarded as a festival in China. Although “Qingming” is a festival in China, as a solar term it is different from a normal festival. Not only does it have the meaning of folk activity and ancestral memory, it also signifies phenological change and seasonal order.
In China, when “Qingming” comes, the temperature rises and there is more rain, which is the best time of spring ploughing and sowing for farmers. There are several sayings about what farmers do at the time of Qingming. One of these is, “Before and after Qingming is a good time to seed melons and beans (implying that you reap what you sow),” while another is, “No time is more suitable to plant trees than the time of Qingming.”
Translated by Zhu Siyu
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