The Qingming Festival

Qingming began as a solar term. About a hundred days past the winter solstice the sun warms and the rains multiply, and farmers start soaking seed and raising seedlings. The Huainanzi records: 'Fifteen days after the spring equinox, the Dipper points to yi, and the clear-bright wind arrives' — the very words qing-ming describe this season of clear air and bright scenery.

As a festival it came from two older customs. One was Hanshi, the Cold Food festival — traditionally traced to Duke Wen of Jin mourning Jie Zitui — when no fires were lit and only cold food eaten. The other was Shangsi, near the third day of the third month, when people went to the water's edge for purification rites. The dates sat close, and the customs gradually merged. In 732, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang decreed 'tomb-visits at Cold Food' for the whole realm, and grave-sweeping gained official standing.

From Song and Yuan times on, Qingming — once the junior partner of Hanshi — absorbed both the grave rites of the one and the spring outings of the other, arriving at today's shape: the report made before the grave, and the new green on the slope.

The season's first business is the graveside. With a sickle and a bamboo basket, the family clears the weeds, banks a layer of new soil, sets out food and wine, lights incense and burns paper. They bow in order of seniority, stand a while, and only then come down the hill.

From the graves, the outing follows naturally. Around Qingming the grass turns new: breaking willow sprigs, wearing them, flying kites, riding swings, playing cuju — all belong to these few days. The old logic: with Cold Food's fires out and cold food in the belly, one had best get outdoors and move.

The season's eating has its own rules: in Jiangnan they steam qingtuan, skins kneaded from mugwort juice and glutinous rice flour; elsewhere there are sanzi twists, Qingming dumplings, runbing wraps. Methods differ; they chase the same fresh taste of spring.

Qingming is the only one of the twenty-four solar terms that is also a festival. Half weather, half human feeling: one moment you are saying farewell at the grave, the next you are looking at new green on the slope.

'Attend carefully to the ends of the dead and pursue the memory of the distant' — laid onto Qingming, those words become two concrete acts: remember where you come from, and tend the days at hand.

On 20 May 2006, the Qingming Festival (project no. 450) entered the first batch of the national intangible cultural heritage list as item Ⅹ-2; since 2008 it has been a statutory public holiday in China.