How Do Chinese Celebrate the Qingming Festival?

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Qingming Festival (清明节, qīng míng jíe) is one of the most important traditional festivals in China. It falls on April 4th or 5th. In 2024, Qingming Festival falls on April 4th, when most Chinese people will enjoy a public holiday.

Qingming Festival is also called Tomb Sweeping Day as it is the time for Chinese people to show respect to their ancestors by cleaning their ancestors' tombs and placing offerings.

In addition, Qingming (清明) in Chinese mean 'clearness' and 'brightness'. It is the fifth of the 24 solar terms of the traditional Chinese solar calendar, marking the start of the warm weather of spring and the beginning of farm work.

How Do Chinese Celebrate the Qingming Festival?

There are various activities for Qingming Festival. The most popular ones, such as tomb upkeep and repair, spring outings, kite flying, and putting willow branches on gates, have been an important part of this festival since its beginning.

Tomb Sweeping — the Most Important Custom of Qingming Festival

People commemorate and show respect to their ancestors by visiting their graves, and offering their spirits food, tea or wine, burning incense, burning or offering joss paper (representing money), etc. They sweep the tombs, remove weeds, and add fresh soil to the graves. They might plant willow branches, flowers, or plastic plants on the tombs.

They pray before their ancestors' graves and beseech them to bless their families. However, the custom has been greatly simplified today, especially in cities, where many people only place flowers to remember their dead relatives. Because of their busy work and being far from their family homes, many young people now cannot conduct tomb sweeping in person, and online tomb-sweeping ceremonies now take place in many cities.

With different times observed regionally, ethnically, and even locally to do tomb sweeping in China, the custom mainly happens sometime during the 10 days before or after the day of Qingming Festival.

Putting Willow Branches on Gates

During the Qingming Festival, some people wear soft willow branches and place the branches on gates and front doors. People believe that this custom will ward off wandering evil spirits during Qingming.

That willows are considered magical is mainly a Buddhist influence. Traditional pictures of the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin often show her seated on a rock with a willow branch in a vase of water at her side. The goddess used this mysterious water and branch to scare away demons.

According to historical records, there is an old saying: 'Put willow branches up on gates; drive ghosts away from houses.'

Spring Outings and Kite Flying

Qingming is also called Taqing Festival. Taqing (踏青, tà qīng) means a spring outing, when people get out and enjoy the spring blossoms. The festival usually falls on a day not long before everything turns green in the north, and well into the spring flower season in the south.

It marks the weather warming up, when people spend more time outside. Flying kites is for relaxation on this holiday, and to some it means getting rid of misfortune.

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