What s going on on the Qingming Festival

The Ming Festival, also known as the Tomb Sweeping Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Underworld Festival, together with the July 15th Midyear Festival and the October 15th Lower Yuan Festival, are collectively known as the Three Hades Festival, all of which are related to the sacrifice of ghosts and gods. Qingming Festival, also known as the Qingqing Festival, according to the solar calendar, it is between April 4 and 6 every year, it is the spring bright and beautiful grass and trees spit out the green season, and it is also a good time for people to go on a spring outing (called Qingqing in ancient times), so the ancients had the custom of Qingming and Qingqing, and carried out a series of sports activities. The Qingming Festival, also known as the March Festival in ancient times, has a history of more than 2,000 years.

Around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar is the Qingming Festival, which is one of the 24 solar terms. Among the 24 solar terms, only Qingming is both a solar term and a festival. In ancient China, Qingming was divided into three phases:

One waits for Tong Shihua; The second waiting vole turned into a quail; Three waiting for the rainbow to see. This means that at this time of year, the paulownia flowers bloom, then the shade-loving voles are gone, and they all return to their underground holes, and then the sky can see the rainbow after the rain. Because the 24 solar terms objectively reflect the changes in temperature, rainfall, phenology and other aspects of the four seasons of the year, the ancient working people used it to arrange agricultural activities.

Huainanzi Tianwenxun "Cloud": "Fifteen days after the vernal equinox, Douzhi B, then the Qingming wind arrives. According to the statement of "Hundred Questions in the Year":

Everything grows at this time, it is clean and clear. Therefore, it is called Qingming. "As soon as Qingming arrives, the temperature rises and the rainfall increases, which is a good season for spring plowing and spring planting.

Therefore, there is an agricultural proverb of "before and after the Qingming Festival, order melons and plant beans" and "planting trees and afforestation, no more than the Qingming Festival". It can be seen that this solar term has a close relationship with agricultural production. However, Qingming is a festival, which is different from the pure solar terms.

The solar terms are the signs of phenological changes and seasonal order in China, while festivals contain certain customs and certain commemorative significance. Qingming Festival is a traditional festival in our country, and it is also the most important sacrificial festival, which is a day to worship ancestors and sweep tombs. Tomb sweeping is commonly known as going to the grave, an activity to sacrifice the dead.

Most of the Han and some ethnic minorities sweep the tombs on the Qingming Festival. According to the old custom, when sweeping the tomb, people should bring wine, food, fruits, paper money and other items to the cemetery, offer food to the grave of their relatives, and then incinerate the paper money, cultivate new soil for the tomb, break a few tender green new branches and insert them on the grave, and then kowtow and worship, and finally eat the wine and food and go home. Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's poem "Qingming":

During the Qingming Festival, it rains a lot, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls. Where is the restaurant? The shepherd boy refers to Xinghua Village.

Write about the special atmosphere of the Qingming Festival. To this day, the custom of worshipping ancestors and mourning deceased relatives is still prevalent on Qingming Festival. 【Origin of the Qingming Festival】 The traditional Qingming Festival in China began in the Zhou Dynasty and has a history of more than 2,500 years.

In ancient times, it was not as important as the previous day's cold food festival, because the dates of the Qingming and cold food festivals were close, and the folk gradually merged the customs of the two, and in the Sui and Tang dynasties (581 to 907), the Qingming Festival and the cold food festival gradually merged into the same festival, becoming the day of tomb sweeping and ancestor worship, that is, today's Qingming Festival. Therefore, the Qingming Festival has become a fixed custom of the Chinese nation.

Ming Festival is an important traditional festival in China, and is one of the important "eight festivals" (Shangyuan, Qingming, Lixia, Dragon Boat Festival, Zhongyuan, Mid-Autumn Festival, Winter Solstice and Chinese New Year's Eve). It is generally on April 5 of the Gregorian calendar, but its festival period is very long, there are two sayings after the 10th day and 10 days before and 10 days later, and these nearly 20 days are all Qingming Festival. The origin of the Qingming Festival, it is said that it began in the ancient emperors and generals of the "tomb sacrifice" ceremony, and later the folk also followed suit, on this day to worship the ancestors and sweep the tomb, the successive dynasties have become a fixed custom of the Chinese nation.

The Qingming Festival originated in the Shang Dynasty, is one of the traditional festivals of the Han nationality in China, and one of the 24 solar terms in China. After the Qingming Festival, the rain increased, and the earth showed the image of spring and scenery. At this time, everything "spits out the old and absorbs the new", whether it is the vegetation in nature or the human body coexisting with nature, at this time, it is replaced with the pollution of winter, ushering in the breath of spring, and realizing the transformation from yin to yang.

In ancient times, there was a saying that the day before Qingming was the "Cold Food Festival", which was said to have originated in the Spring and Autumn Period when Jin Wengong mourned Jie Zitui's "cutting shares to fill hunger", and then gradually the Qingming cold food was combined into one. The date of tomb sweeping in the Tang Dynasty was generally on the Cold Food Festival, and it was moved to Qingming after the Song Dynasty. Legend of the "cold food festival" of the origin of the central Shanxi Jiexiu, the origin of the Jiexiu is to commemorate the meson push "cut the stock to fill the hunger" and not to retribution, and finally died by the fire in this mountain, Mianshan is also called "Jieshan".

Legend has it that after Dayu controlled the water, people used the words of "Qingming" to celebrate that the flood had been eliminated and the world was peaceful. At this time, the spring flowers are blooming, everything is recovering, and the sky is clear, which is a good season for spring outing. Outing began as early as the Tang Dynasty, and it has become a habit to inherit it from generation to generation.

In addition to enjoying the natural scenery of lakes and mountains and the beautiful scenery of spring, it also carries out various cultural and recreational activities to add interest to life. Tomb sweeping is popular on the Qingming Festival, in fact, tomb sweeping is the content of the cold food festival on the day before the Qingming Festival. In the twentieth year of the opening of the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzong decreed the world to "go to the tomb with cold food".

Because of the cold food and the Qingming Festival, it was gradually spread to the Qingming tomb sweeping. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, tomb sweeping was more prevalent. In ancient times, children often had to fly kites when sweeping tombs.

Some kites have bamboo flutes installed on them, which can make a sound when blown by the wind, like the sound of kites, and it is said that the name of the kite comes from this. There are many lost customs of the Qingming Festival, such as the ancient long-term circulation of wearing willows, shooting willows, playing swings, etc., it is reported that the customs of the Liao Dynasty are the most important Qingming Festival, up to the court down to the common people are happy to play swings, ladies gather, and the wind of stepping on the green is also extremely prosperous.