Tomb Sweeping Day: Similar to Memorial Day?

While I was reading my autobiographies I was searching for certain items, dates, dynasties to stick out at me so I could be interested in writing this blog post about them. There were a few instances in which I was deciding between dynasties that Johnny wrote to me about and a festival day called "tomb sweeping." As I am not real big into history I decided to skip the dynasties and look into what they call "Tomb Sweeping Day." In my autobiography I received from Alice, I'm assuming that she thought I knew what tomb sweeping day was because she did not explain it at all. In fact all she put was a picture of herself (Selfie) of her standing by a tree with a caption saying "Me on Tomb Sweeping Day." I was immediately intrigued and wondering if this day in China that they celebrate was like our american holiday Memorial Day? I wrote back to Alice asking many questions about this day and why she would put a picture of her on this special day, when I'm connecting it to Memorial Day; yet she seemed very happy in the picture.

When I started looking into Tomb sweeping day it seemed more and more like memorial day. According to this article based on Chinese Festivals, Tomb Sweeping Day is said to be the most important custom during the Qingming Festival. This Chinese festival is always near the beginning of April because this special day is a festival for more then just honoring the dead, but it is closely related to agriculture. This festival marks a point in the year where temperatures begin to rise and rainfall increases; meaning it is a crucial time period for plowing and sowing.

Also I found to be very interesting day because when they honor their lost loved ones they clear the weeds from the tomb and plant fresh soil to show care for their dead ones. On top of that their family takes the favorite food and wine of their loved ones, to sacrifice for them, along with paper to resemble money. These actions of leaving their loved ones their favorite items and burning it on their grave is to show that their loved ones are not lacking food and money.

I now know why Alice took a picture of herself in the graveyard because it is an important tradition during the spring for their agriculture and a day for the gathering of family and honoring of their deceased loved ones.