Statistics released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism showed that during this year's Qingming Festival holiday (April 3-5), Chinese travelers made about 102 million trips to domestic destinations, a year-on-year increase of 144.6 percent and about 94.5 percent of the level in 2019, the year before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Such a figure not only means the gradual recovery of the domestic tourism industry, but also signifies that Chinese people pay special emphasis to traditional holidays. Qingming Festival, which falls on the 4th or 5th day in April, is an important occasion for the Chinese people to pay tribute to deceased ancestors and beloved relatives. Although the solar term Qingming was first recorded in the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C. to 8 A.D.), it was not until the Tang Dynasty (618 A.D. to 907 A.D.) that it was decreed as a national holiday to honor the dead.
It is obvious that the festival, which has a history of thousands of years, has gone through many changes and transformations. In traditional Chinese tomb-sweeping rituals, family members would gather at grave sites, clean and weed grass near tomb yards, and bring sacrificial offering including alcohol, cigarettes, fruit, fireworks, joss sticks and joss paper, money for use in the afterlife. However, since burning joss sticks and joss paper and setting off fireworks cause pollution and pose a fire hazard, such practices are not recommended and are even forbidden by some local governments, especially if the grave sites are very close to residential areas, public buildings, cultural relics, forests or grassland.
Since the early 2000s, online memorial services have emerged. With the help of the Internet, people can establish memorials on websites for their deceased family members and friends, which include their life stories, recordings and videos. Words can also be left on message boards to remember and mourn the deceased. With the development of mobile technologies in recent years, people can also scan QR codes to visit virtual memorial halls.
Honoring martyrs has always been part of the tradition of Qingming. It has also become customary around the time of the festival for schools and organizations to arrange group trips to revolutionary martyrs' cemeteries to lay wreaths at monuments, learn their heroic stories and pay respect for their sacrifices. This year, in keeping with the continuing prevention of COVID-19 infections and avoiding mass gatherings, an official website specially dedicated to martyrs was launched so people could pay their homage via the online platform to those who sacrificed their lives for the country.
Originally, Chinese people believed that earth provides the best shelter for the dead and they viewed the act of burying deceased ancestors under the ground as a way to show their filial piety. However, younger and better educated generations in China are more and more open-minded, thus making more ecological burials, such as ashes storage, sea burials and tree burials, welcomed in the country.
In old Chinese tradition and poems, drizzling rain, tears, sorrow and mourning are common terms to describe the holiday. Nevertheless, in my point of view, sorrow should not be the only sentiment for the tomb-sweeping day. While performing rituals for deceased loved ones and offering sacrifices to ancestors, people can also get close to nature and cherish life in the holiday.
In other words, the day is not solely about the obligation of filial duty, but also an occasion to express joy and gratitude for life. So families also often take the three-day holiday to visit the countryside to appreciate spring blossoms and find their inner peace by communicating with nature. Given the length of the break, most travelers choose short trips and visit scenic spots and tourist attractions near their homes.
(The author is the editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)