Qingming is hailed as one of China’s four major traditional festivals, but in my memory, it has never held much significance, and I’ve rarely participated in its activities. Scrolling through my Onedrive photo timeline, I realized I’ve only actively taken part twice—in 2012 and 2019. Now, in 2025, it’s my third time.
An Unplanned Trip
Originally, I hadn’t planned to travel this Qingming Festival. My initial plan was to return to my hometown during the May Day holiday to pick up my mother-in-law. However, an unexpected situation arose. My mother-in-law’s house was undergoing renovations, so she temporarily moved in with my wife’s second sister. But recently, the second sister, her husband, and their son had to leave town for personal reasons, leaving my mother-in-law alone in their house—which felt a bit odd. At my wife’s insistence, I took advantage of the Qingming holiday to rush back and bring her over. Thus, the traditional customs of Qingming became a side activity during this trip.
In fact, because it had been so long since I last participated in Qingming rituals, when I returned to my hometown and tried to buy offerings, I couldn’t even remember what to choose. I had to ask the shopkeeper for recommendations and ended up with a random assortment.
The Core of Qingming: Ancestral Worship
Looking at traditional festivals, my lack of emotional connection to Qingming stems mainly from its singular cultural focus—ancestral worship.
And this custom, in my hometown, is practically a year-round activity.
Chinese New Year
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, our first task is ancestral worship. We wake up early, prepare the offerings, and head straight to the graves to pay respects to our ancestors before exchanging New Year’s greetings with the living.
Lantern Festival
During the Lantern Festival, we have a custom called “lighting the lamps.” At dusk, we carry torches to the graves to “release lanterns”—usually large red candles and a massive torch that burns for hours, planted at the gravesite. The ritual also involves paying respects to our ancestors.
Qingming Festival
Our main Qingming custom is “hanging mountain” (guashan). Historically, this was a Cold Food Festival tradition before the Tang Dynasty, later merging with Qingming during the Song Dynasty. The practice involves hanging paper streamers on ancestral graves.
Personally, I think the most practical purpose of this ritual is identification.
When I was a child, the mountains in winter were mostly barren. Any plant that could be chopped for firewood was stripped away, making graves easy to spot.
But when spring arrived, greenery flourished, and without distinctive markers, it was easy to lose track of the graves.
Dragon Boat Festival
For the Dragon Boat Festival, ancestral worship is usually done at home, not on the mountains.
Double Ninth Festival
The Double Ninth Festival is another major ancestral worship day in my hometown. We “hang flowers” on graves—wreaths made of chrysanthemums, osmanthus, or paper flowers—along with inserting cornel branches.
Winter Solstice / Major Cold
From the Winter Solstice to Major Cold, the coldest time of the year, we have a custom of “loosening the soil” on graves. We clear weeds from the graves and paths, making them bare again to prepare for New Year’s ancestral worship.
Little New Year
On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, Little New Year, we hold the last ancestral worship of the year to “welcome the ancestors” home for the New Year.
Death Anniversaries
Beyond these festivals, there are also death anniversaries and birthdays of ancestors, which require visits to the graves. However, these usually only extend back two or three generations—older dates are often forgotten.
In an agricultural society, these traditions weren’t burdensome. In my hometown, most graves weren’t far from home, just a few minutes’ walk, so visiting seven or eight times a year wasn’t a big deal.
But in modern times, they’ve become somewhat impractical.
On one hand, many places now practice cremation, with graves concentrated in public cemeteries far from residential areas. On the other hand, for cross-province migrants like me, it adds unnecessary difficulty.
Most importantly, in the process of modernization and urbanization, these repetitive rituals have become increasingly disconnected from contemporary life. In this context, the state’s emphasis on “Qingming tomb-sweeping” alone actually simplifies things for everyone.
A Fading Tradition
Over the years, I’ve only managed to participate in grave visits twice a year, often with a sense of guilt.
This year marks the 16th anniversary of my father’s passing, the 11th since my grandmother’s, the 9th since my grandfather’s, and the second since my grandmother’s (on my mother’s side). My father-in-law also passed away at our home six years ago.
Additionally, many other relatives from the older generation have passed away in the last decade, prompting deep reflection.
Every generation has its own responsibilities. Ours has lived through the most dramatic 30 years of China’s transition from an agricultural to an industrial and modern society.
Thirty years ago, our lives were little different from those of traditional Chinese society for millennia—tied to the land, rarely leaving our small villages.
Folk customs were preserved intact.
Looking back, when I followed my grandfather and father in these rituals, I remember feeling deeply devout, always eager to lead the way.
It felt like an exciting new experience.
Especially on New Year’s morning, when we raced to pay respects at our great-grandfather’s grave, competing with my father’s dozen or so cousins to see who could get there first.
In the depths of winter, just crawling out of bed was hard enough. We also had to light fires to prepare the “three sacrifices” (pork, chicken, fish)—no easy task when matches and firewood were damp with cold.
Even the order of New Year’s greetings afterward followed unwritten rules, dictated by seniority.
For example, even if Fourth Uncle’s house was right next to First Uncle’s, we had to visit Second and Third Uncle’s homes first before finally stopping by Fourth Uncle’s.
Later, after my grandfather’s siblings passed away, these informal rules gradually disappeared.
Because then, “ancestral New Year’s greetings” had to be split—first to great-grandparents, then grandparents, then my father, all on different mountains. A full round took one or two hours.
Add to that my grandfather’s nine siblings and my great-grandfather’s seven, and the generations before them with similar family sizes—while my generation is mostly only children—and the joy of those childhood New Year’s visits is long gone.
I’ve even come to feel there’s no point explaining these traditions to my children. They wouldn’t understand.
In recent years, whenever possible, I’ve taken my kids to visit graves. Though they never met their grandfather or great-grandfather, they did meet their great-grandmother (my grandmother).
But I know this connection is tenuous at best.
Take my own experience, for example.
I vaguely remember meeting my maternal great-grandmother (my grandmother’s mother) several times as a child and have hazy memories of her appearance.
But when I recently compared notes with older relatives, I realized my memories were badly scrambled.
The image of my great-grandmother in my mind was frozen in 1994, when she stayed at our house during my uncle’s wedding—I was five.
In reality, she passed away in 1999, when I was nearly finishing elementary school.
I suddenly realized I had no memory of whether I’d seen her between 1994 and 1999.
It was only after consulting my uncle that I confirmed my mistake. He and my aunt married in 1998, and my great-grandmother died during a heavy snowfall—I remember him carrying me down the mountain that day.
That memory is clear, proving just how faint my recollection of my great-grandmother was.
In recent years, whenever I’ve taken my kids back to my hometown—whether for New Year’s or other occasions—nothing particularly memorable has happened. Each year’s experience is slightly different, split between my hometown and my mother-in-law’s.
The chances of them remembering my grandmother when they grow up are probably as slim as my memories of my great-grandmother.
I can’t expect them to carry on these traditions now.
Maybe decades from now, with the state’s encouragement, all they’ll know is that Qingming is a day for visiting graves.