Qing Ming Festival: Sometimes known as the Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day, Old Souls Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar.
Qing Ming has been regularly observed as a statutory public holiday in Taiwan , Hongkong and Macau. Qing Ming was reinstated as a public holiday in mainland China in 2008, after having been previously suppressed by the ruling Communist Party in 1949.
I had the opportunity this trip to be with friends in Kuching in the island of Borneo. It was explained to me that the Qing Ming Festival is an opportunity for the families of the deceased to remember, honor and give thanks to their ancestors at grave sites. Prior to praying and offering food, tea, wine, they swept the tombs and cleaned the ‘houses of the ancestors’ ie grave sites/tombs before burning the joss paper and paper accessories at the grave sites. Those papers accessories are paper replica of some material good such car, maid, home, phone, and etc. In Chinese culture, even though a person died, he/she may still need all of these in the afterlife. In Malaysia, the Chinese normally visit the graves of their late relations at the nearest weekend of the actual date.
I noted that a week before the festivals, the grounds were burnt to get rid of the tall grass surrounding the graves. I suppose since the grave sites are only visited once a year during Qing Ming, one would then expect the graveyard to be clean only once a year. I noted that this is quite different to the more modern graveyard where expenses are paid for graveyards & sites to be kept in good conditions all through the life of the tenure. I visited the site of one grandparent and they are sites where a plot of land and the tombstone are the only expenses paid for the ancestors in those days. No continuous maintenance fees, thus not as flash as the new graveyards with maintenance fees.
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