Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day is a very traditional and important festival in China which is dated back to thousands of years. The festival originated from Hanshi Day, which is a memorial day for Jie Zitui.

And its origin is contributed to the Tang Emperor Xuanzong in 732 who declared Qingming as the formal day to paid respect to ancestors because many wealthy citizens spent too many extravagant ceremonies in honour of their ancestors in those days.

The Qingming Festival is an opportunity for celebrants to remember and honour their ancestors at grave sites and pray for happiness and healthy for their posterities. This festival is especially important in Guangdong province. It can be competed with the Spring Festival in terms of its importance.

Often, around these days, the whole family, young and old will come together to celebrate the festival, sweeping the tombs and offering food, tea, wine, joss paper accessories and libations to the ancestors. At the same time, they will set off a lot of fireworks. So it is very busy in the country mountains.

Qingming is one of the 24 of solar terms in the lunisolar calendars. In this season, there is a lot of drizzling rain that falls like tears on the mourning day, expressing endless miss for mourners to the past kinsfolk. Under such circumstances, the mourner’s heart is really breaking on the way.