What festival is the Cold Clothes Festival?

Hanyi Festival, also known as "October Dynasty", "Ancestor Festival", "Ghost Festival", "Autumn Festival" and "October 1st", is a traditional sacrificial festival in China. People will offer sacrifices on this day to commemorate their deceased relatives, which is called sending cold clothes.

The first day of October in the lunar calendar is the first day after the cold winter. In ancient times, there were customs such as sending clothes, offering sacrifices and cooking stoves to remind people to pay attention to the arrival of cold winter. On this day, women will take out cotton-padded clothes and give them to their relatives who guard the border and serve the corvee in the distance. While sending cold clothes to relatives, it will gradually develop into sending cold clothes to ancestors and the dead.

According to legend, the Cold Clothes Festival originated in the Zhou Dynasty. The Book of Songs Wind in July records that "fire flows in July, and clothes are given in September", which means that the weather turns cold in September of the lunar calendar, and people begin to buy warm clothes for the winter, so the Cold Clothes Festival is also called the "Clothes Giving Festival". As October just entered the winter, it was too early to give clothes in September, and this custom was moved to October in the Song Dynasty. Folk call Han Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day Festival and Zhongyuan Festival the three "ghost festivals" in China.