What is Qingming?

The Qingming Festival usually falls in April in the solar calendar. At the very beginning, it was a very important solar term. The weather gradually turns nice after the Qingming Festival. Having undergone constant evolvement, the day has become a festival for the Chinese people to commemorate their ancestors. The Chinese people now prefer to choose Qingming as the tomb sweeping day. With the concept of environmental protection deeply rooted among the general public, it is now a trend to have an environmental-friendly tomb sweeping day, such as carrying out public memorial ceremony, public commemoration through the Internet, etc.

Stepping-the-green

Qingming Festival is also a festival?for various sports.Since people with weak constitutions might get hurt by eating cold raw food on Qingming, when the weather is still cold, various activities were invented for body-building, like taqing (stepping-the-green outing), swing, Cuju (Chinese football), polo, willow-planting, tug-of-war, and rooster-fighting, etc.The Chinese usually sweep tombs and fly kites on this day. It is said that in this way people will also be protected from bad luck and diseases.

Food

The sweet green rice ball is a Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day) food popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces. It is also a must-have offering at ancestral rituals in the south of the Yangtze River. The custom of making sweet green rice balls dates back to the Zhou Dynasty over 2,000 years ago. One or two days before the Qingming Festival were designated as "cold food days", during which hot cooking is banned.

Poem

Since the ancient times, there have been a lot of works of art and poems about Qingming, manifesting the emphasis and passing-on of the Chinese people on Qingming. Of these, Tomb Sweeping Day by Du Mu in the Tang Dynasty is a poem of household fame.

Qingming by Du Mu

杜牧《清明》

清明时节雨纷纷，路上行人欲断魂。

The rain flies heavily as Qingming draws, move sadly along the way the passengers;?

借问酒家何处有，牧童遥指杏花村。

I wanna know where the tavern is, He points at a distant hamlet nestling amidst apricot blossoms.