Qingming Festival

What it is

Qingming is a spring festival of the Chinese year given to the dead and to family duty. On this day households go to the graves of their ancestors, clear away weeds and litter, leave food and drink, and burn incense and paper offerings. It belongs to Chinese ancestral veneration, a body of custom rather than a single rite, and it stands beside the Confucian idea of filial piety, the duty owed to parents and, after death, to forebears. Practitioners hold that the dead continue to need food, money and goods, and that willow branches brought home at this time keep misfortune away. The festival also opens the season for spring outings and, in farming districts, for plowing.

Where it comes from

Spring remembrance of the dead is old in China, perhaps prehistoric, though the observance has changed greatly. The festival grew out of Hanshi, the Cold Food Festival, which is said to honour Jie Zitui. In one telling he served Chong'er, a prince of Jin during the Spring and Autumn period, followed him into exile, and was later passed over when rewards were handed out. He withdrew to the woods near Mount Mian with his elderly mother. The duke had the forest set alight to force him out, and both died in the fire. Lighting fires was then forbidden on the anniversary of his death. People in Shanxi revered him as an immortal and went without fires for as long as a month in deep winter, harming children and the old; local rulers tried for centuries to stop it. A compromise confined the fireless days to three around the Qingming solar term.

How it is done

Customs differ from family to family, but the outline is much the same. Relatives gather at the grave, the columbarium or a home altar and set out dishes the dead enjoyed. Incense sticks are lit and paper offerings burned. At the tomb each person bows three to nine times, the number depending on how strictly the household keeps tradition, with the eldest of the male line going first. Everyone then shares the food and drink brought for the ceremony. Some put willow twigs on the door or in the hair. Those who live far from a grave may make offerings from a distance, and the day often ends in an outing or kite flying.

Tools and materials

Joss sticks and joss paper carry the offering: incense in stick form, and paper, often silver-leafed, that is burned for the dead. Spirit money and paper models of everyday goods, cars, houses, telephones or paper servants, go into the flames, since the dead are held to need such things in the next world. Food and drink are set out and eaten afterwards. Willow branches and pomegranate are brought as signs of ritual purity, and flowers are a common substitute for paper, incense or firecrackers. Kites shaped like animals or opera figures belong to the day's play.

What it is for

The festival is for remembering, for giving thanks to forebears and for keeping a family's obligations in order. Relatives come to honour the dead, to repair their resting places and to bring family news to the grave. In farming districts the observance is held to keep the other world friendly: farmers believe that continued offerings will bring a good harvest. The day also gathers scattered relatives and gives a set time for grief and family pride. Some pay respects to national or legendary heroes, and after Premier Zhou Enlai died in 1976 thousands honoured him at Qingming.

Who does it

There is no priesthood set apart for this festival. Ordinary households carry it out, led by the oldest members, with children taking part, and the duty rests on the family or clan rather than a specialist. In Malaysia and Singapore a clan association often arranges the visit and the meal, honouring distant forebears from China at home altars, clan temples or temporary altars in Buddhist and Taoist temples. Where a family follows a religion, some address a higher deity and others speak directly to the ancestral spirits. Families speak of the custom as a way to pass good values to the next generation.

Peoples and places

Ethnic Chinese keep the day in China and in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and communities in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Thailand do the same. Overseas groups were untouched by the Cultural Revolution, so some of their rites and rules of respect still follow Ming and Qing practice. In Malaysia, Qingming is a family or clan occasion, often organised by a clan association, honouring the recently dead at their graves and far-off ancestors at altars. Some families travel to China, where their forebears are buried. The Ryukyu Islands mark a similar day called Shīmī, and the Chitty community observes Qingming as well.

What people believe

Behind the festival lies a Chinese view of the dead as family members still, able to receive what is sent to them. Paper money and paper goods are burned because the departed are believed to need housing, transport and servants in the next life. Chinese Buddhism teaches that those who die carrying guilt cannot eat in the afterlife except on this day. Willow, and pomegranate with it, count as signs of ritual purity and are held to turn misfortune aside. In some places people say graves should be swept only in this season, since the dead are disturbed by visits at other times.

When it is done

The date is not fixed by the ordinary calendar. It arrives with the solar term called Qingming, the fifth of the year, which puts the festival fifteen days after the March equinox: 4, 5 or 6 April. Some years the observance has been set on 5 April, others on 4 April; in 2026 it falls on 5 April. Old custom allows grave visits within ten days before or after the day, and families abroad often choose the nearest weekend. In Taiwan the holiday was once tied to 5 April as the anniversary of Chiang Kai-shek's death.

Compare and confuse

Qingming is often treated with Hanshi, the Cold Food Festival, whose story of Jie Zitui it took over; the two are linked but not the same. The Ryukyu Islands keep a comparable observance called Shīmī. Vietnamese readers meet the day as Thanh Minh in The Tale of Kieu, though the festival itself is not celebrated in Vietnam. Willow used at Qingming has been compared with palm leaves carried on Palm Sunday in Christian practice. A Song dynasty scroll attributed to Zhang Zeduan carries the name Qingming but shows none of the festival's activities, so the title may not refer to the holiday.

Law and persecution

Emperors legislated these rites and built imperial tombs for each dynasty. The Qingming date owes much to an edict of 732, when Emperor Xuanzong of Tang restricted formal honours to ancestors to once a year in an attempt to curb the lavish ceremonies of wealthy citizens. Rulers in Shanxi spent centuries trying without success to ban the long fireless fast, which ended as a three-day custom around the solar term. Mainland China made the day a public holiday in 2008. Taiwan had none until 1972; from 1975 it also marked Chiang Kai-shek's death on 5 April, a practice dropped in 2007.

Today

The day is a public holiday in mainland China and in Taiwan, and it goes on without official standing in Chinese communities elsewhere. In mainland China it is linked with qingtuan, green dumplings of glutinous rice and mugwort or barley grass; Taiwan has its own sweet, caozaiguo or shuchuguo, made with Jersey cudweed. Tea growers divide the spring crop by this date, and the leaves picked before it carry the pre-Qingming designation and the highest value. In Taiwan the old habit of marking Chiang Kai-shek's death alongside the festival has faded as his reputation has declined. Overseas communities keep the observance faithfully, some following Ming and Qing forms.

Days linked to Qingming Festival

Questions people ask about Qingming Festival

Good reading and sources

• Qingming Festival on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data