A cool thing will be happening on the 5th of April: Tomb Sweeping Day. We have an extended weekend so we are going to have a lot of fun and I figured that I would write a description of what all of this is.
To us: what it means to us is that we get an extended weekend. Tomb Sweeping day is the 5th which is a Tuesday. We get Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of this week so are totally excited about that. Unfortunately we have to work tomorrow (Saturday) but we are teaching some of our most liked classes so that isn’t a problem.
To the Chinese: think of it as a Memorial Day for the Chinese. Growing up the states what I remember most about Memorial Day was that we would eat A LOT of food and then stand around forever at a cemetery 🙂 . It is pretty much the same for the Chinese.
Tomb Sweeping Day is actually called the Qingming Festival. The day, according to the world wide webs, is the first day of the fifth solar term, which is often April 5th, give or a take a day. Other names for the festival are the Pure Brightness Festival and Ancestors Day. Essentially the holiday is “a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime and tend to the graves of loved ones.” It is also a time that people often start dating and also when farmers will start to plow their fields.
On that day, people will spend a lot of time outside and then they might bring a large meal to grave site to eat. They then will tend to the grave sight and clean it, hence why it has been named tomb sweeping day. People will also often burn spirit money and other paper replicas of material items such as cars and homes. They do this because the Chinese believe that those things are still needed in the afterlife.
An interesting thing about the holiday: appearently people can be seen carrying branches of a willow tree or they might also leave them by the door of their home. It is believed that the willow branches help ward off the evil spirit that wanders during Qingming.
So yeah, we were going to head out of town for the weekend but since we have to work we are going to stay here. While I think that it would be cool to leave town I know that spending time with the locals will be worth more than any trip. It is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that just can’t be missed.