The Relationship between Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day

Cold Food Festival is not directly related to Tomb-Sweeping Day, but both are traditional festivals in China. The relationship between Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day is linked together, because the time between Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day is very close, only one or two days apart. Grave-sweeping activities in the Tang Dynasty were both cold food and Qingming. Looking at the cold food and Qingming poems written by the Tang people, they all mention sweeping graves. Later, the Cold Food Festival disappeared, and the grave sweeping function was all put in Tomb-Sweeping Day for one day.

Every year when Tomb-Sweeping Day comes, the Cold Food Festival follows. So some people will confuse Tomb-Sweeping Day with the Cold Food Festival, which is actually very wrong. One is farming solar terms, and the other is folk festivals. Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the twenty-four solar terms in the China lunar calendar, usually around April 4th and 5th. The Cold Food Festival is a folk festival, which originated from the story that Minister Jie was burned to death on Mianshan Mountain in Jiexiu, Shanxi Province, and refused to go down to be sealed.

Although the Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day are two different things, one is agricultural solar terms, the other is allusions and folk customs, but the two festivals are separated by one or two days or even coincide on the same day, so there is a saying that Qingming Festival and Cold Food Festival are called the same.