Qingming — the feast of the tomb sweep

The festival

Qingming, "purity and clarity", is both a solar term in the traditional Chinese calendar and the great festival of spring ancestors, which was listed in 2006 on China's first list of the national intangible cultural heritage and national holiday since 2008. Families go to the graves to sweep and maintain them — the saomu —, to lay down food offerings, to burn incense and paper money for the deceased, and then to extend the moment in the open air, between spring exit and kites.

In Huangling, in the Shaanxi, the official ceremony honours every year in Qingming Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, considered the founder of Chinese civilization and the common ancestor of all Chinese, in his mausoleum of Mount Qiao. In the south, the qingtuan, a green sticky rice pellet filled with sweet bean paste, is eaten on this occasion.