Winter is gone and spring is coming, the Tomb-Sweeping Day is arriving quietly. It’s one of the most celebrated festivals after Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival in China. Normally, it falls on  5th of every April. 

In my memory, this day was held to think of the familial members that had departed. When I was a little boy, my grandma would take me to the market to buy the goods for the Day about a couple of days before the festival, the goods usually should be the wine, fruits, paper-money, joss incense, firecrackers and some poultries, such as chicken, duck and pork, etc.

When the Day was coming up, the adults would get up very early and did the job for the Day. The children would flock in to the streets or spacious playgrounds to fly the kites and play games there. The prestige of the family would kill a rooster before the family ancestral altar and left the blood around the altar, the aim was to scare the evil spirits.

Approaching the lunch, the prestige would light up two candles at the both sides of the ancestral niche, and then all the family would get together at the altar to pray for the departed, and the prestige would hold a simple but serious sacrificial ceremony for the family, the sacrifices always should be the rooster, pork, alcohol spirit, fruits, steamed breads. Later, the whole family would start to burn the joss incenses and paper-money to the departed forefathers from the younger to the older in turns. Setting off the firecrackers to concluded the ceremony.

The dishes for lunch were almost cold foods, it’s the tradition to eat cold foods on this occasion, after lunch, the whole family would set foot to the ancestral tombs for sweeping. Offerings were put into two large bamboo baskets and carried by the stronger, the children followed the adults to the graveyard.

Upon on the graveyard, the stronger would hoe out off the wild grasses around the tombs, and made the tombs clean and tidy. And then, put the offerings in front of the tomb and lit up the candles and burnt the incenses and paper-money to the forefathers, all the members would kneeled down on the ground for a few minutes for praying. Just wanted the best wishes from the departed and hoped they could bring the good fortune to the family. Nowadays, the offerings have changed greatly, from paper-money to cars, villa, laptop and even the spaceshuttle, everything was commercialized by the modern society.

Here is a famous poetry of the Tang Dynasty to describe the emotion of the people on the Day,

清明时节雨纷纷，(It's rain in succession during the early April,)

路上行人欲断魂。(The pedestrians on the road are very sad.)

借问酒家何处有，(May I ask is there any inns around here,)

牧童遥指杏花村。(The cowboy is pointing to the Apricot Blossom Village afar.)

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