When is the Cold Food Festival?

Cold food is the105th day after the "winter solstice" in the summer calendar (another name is "150"). "Winter solstice" is also determined according to the history of the sun, so "cold food" is generally the day before Tomb-Sweeping Day. The Cold Food Festival, which lasted for more than two thousand years, was once called the largest folk festival in China. Cold Food Festival is the only traditional festival of Han nationality named after food customs.

Cold Food Festival, also known as "No Smoking Festival", "Cold Food Festival" and "Hundred Five Days Festival", follows the ancient habit of changing fire. In this season, the ancients held a grand sacrificial ceremony to put out all the kindling handed down from the previous year, that is, "forbidding fire", and then drilled a new fire as the starting point of production and life in the new year, which was called "changing fire" or "inviting new fire". There is an interval between banning fire and changing fire. Historical materials have different opinions such as three days, five days and seven days.

After the fire was banned, it was changed to the Cold Food Festival to commemorate the famous minister of Jin in the Spring and Autumn Period. After the Three Kingdoms returned to Jin, because they were homophonic with Jin in the Spring and Autumn Period, they paid special attention to their stories in Jin, and the custom of banning fire and cold food in memory of meson push resumed. But the time was shortened to three days. At the same time, the idea of commemorating mesons in the Cold Food Festival was spread to all parts of the country, so the Cold Food Festival became a national festival, and the prohibition of fire and cold food in the Cold Food Festival became the same customs and habits as the Han nationality.

The birthplace of the Cold Food Festival is Mianshan, Jiexiu, Shanxi, which has a history of 2640 years. In history, the Cold Food Festival and Qingming Festival are similar, and over time, they merged into one festival. During the Cold Food Festival, there are visits to grave-sweeping, no smoking, ancestor worship, cold food, willow insertion, outing, cuju, tree planting, swinging, flower viewing, cockfighting, banquet feeding and poetry reading. Banquet, flower viewing, cockfighting, egg carving, tug-of-war, drilling wood for fire, flying kites, shooting herbs, throwing pottery toys and many other activities.