Around April 5th every year, Chinese communities around the world celebrate the Qingming Festival (pronounced Ching-ming). It’s also called Tomb Sweeping Day, Ancestors’ Day, or Clear Bright Festival.
Qingming has long been observed as a public holiday in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. But in China it was only reinstated as an official holiday two years ago. (After 1949, many traditional Chinese holidays were banned in the PRC.)
During Qingming, families clean their ancestors’ graves. They place tea, wine, chopsticks, and food like roast suckling pig, dumplings, and fruit on the gave sites. Then they burn paper money as offerings, to make sure their departed loved ones are provided for in the afterlife. Afterward families enjoy a meal together.
Although the nature of Qingming seems solemn, it’s also a time to enjoy nature and the new greenery of spring.
But in the mid-70s in both China and Taiwan, Qingming took on a political tone.
On April 5, 1975, longtime Kuomingtang leader and Taiwan President–the Generalissimo–Chiang Kai-Shek passed away. April 5th is the Gregorian date that traditionally corresponds with Qingming’s lunar calendar date.
And 9 months later, Premier Zhou Enlai died. During Qingming in 1976, thousands of people on the mainland flocked to his grave to pay respects, even though the holiday was still officially banned. It was perhaps the first mass movement during the Cultural Revolution directed by the people, and not influenced by Mao or the Red Guards.
Thankfully times are more stable in both places now.
For those celebrating, I wish you a peaceful Qingming Festival.