Can Tomb-Sweeping Day visit the grave the day before?

Yes, but the customs are different in every place. Customs!

Local custom

Hebei Province

Hebei pays attention to "Qingming in the early morning and 11th in the evening (Lunar Ghost Festival)". A week before Qingming Festival, people began to sweep graves and burn paper. Few people in Tomb-Sweeping Day went to sweep graves. Southern Hebei chose to sweep graves at the Cold Food Festival the day before in Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Shanghai

The main activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day are grave-sweeping and hiking, and the number of people traveling around Tomb-Sweeping Day every year is nearly 10 million. Due to the reform and opening up, cemeteries have flourished, and related sites are mainly distributed in Suzhou and Jiaxing in other provinces. Therefore, the number of people going to the above areas is more than one million, which often causes traffic congestion in the province for several days before and after Qingming.

In addition, the Youth League is a seasonal snack in Jiangnan. Its main body is glutinous rice flour, mixed with green wormwood (grass head juice) to make green cake balls, which are usually red bean paste or sesame seeds. Keep the habit of cold food when eating. For Shanghainese, the Youth League is an indispensable offering for Tomb-Sweeping Day to worship his ancestors.

Fujian Province

Fujian Minnan doesn't necessarily only visit graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day. There are generally two dates for sweeping graves. The custom in Quanzhou is a few days before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, while some people in Zhangzhou will choose to sweep graves near Shangsi Festival on the third day of March, and Hakkas generally sweep graves after the Spring Festival. The way is, after cleaning the grave environment (such as weeds and trees), worship the land god first, and then worship the ancestors. After the worship, press the "tomb paper" on the grave with a small stone, indicating that the grave has been repaired. Tomb-Sweeping Day usually didn't cook that day, but only ate cool cakes, which originated from the custom of Cold Food Festival.

Sichuan Province

Sacrificial ceremony of Water-splashing Festival in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, Tomb-Sweeping Day (Erwangmiao Temple Fair) for Li Bing and his son (Dujiangyan, Chengdu).

Shanxi

Tomb-Sweeping Day goes to the grave, and most places in the south of Shanxi don't burn incense or paper, so there are things like money hanging in front of the grave. There was a saying that "the river on Qingming Festival is white". The reason is that the Cold Food Festival is used to banning fire, and Tomb-Sweeping Day is during the Cold Food Festival. Most places in northern Shanxi have to burn all the money and other things on the grounds that they will not be transferred to their ancestors unless they are burned. Datong and other places are used to going to the grave during the day and burning money at home at night. In Hequ and other places in northwest Shanxi, it is an old custom to bring wine and vegetables to the grave and then eat and drink in front of the grave, which means drinking and eating with ancestors. In Wenxi and other places in the south of Shanxi, jujube cakes are used to roll in front of the grave when going to the grave. Legend has it that it is to tickle the dead old man. In Jinzhong Jiexiu and other places, when going to the grave, the offering is a cake shaped like a snake. When you get home, put the bread in the yard and dry it before eating. The old people pay attention to treating diseases, the source of which is that cold food is forbidden to fire.

After going to the grave in southern Shanxi, you should pull out some wheat seedlings and insert pine branches, cypress leaves or wicker on the door to ward off evil spirits. There are many willow cuttings in the north of Shanxi. Elsewhere, some wicker was inserted in the grave.

People in southern Shanxi want steamed buns with walnuts, red dates and beans, which are called Zifu. With the blessings of sons and grandchildren, they all bring the blessings of their ancestors. Every family should make bean jelly, cut it into thin slices and eat it with soup. Shovel withered grass and rub it on the kang mat, which is called driving scorpions away. In the southeast of Shanxi, people have willow branches and dead leaves on their heads. Women should stick gold ornaments (headdresses) on their temples. In northern Shanxi, it is customary to have black bean sprouts, which are eaten with corn bread and black bean sprouts stuffing. Northwest Shanxi pays attention to making cakes with millet flour, commonly known as "spreading Huang Er", and Luliang area will receive a female husband the day after Tomb-Sweeping Day, commonly known as "fresh fire".