What are the customs in Tomb-Sweeping Day?

Inserting willows in Tomb-Sweeping Day is the custom of almost all provinces in China, but the uniqueness of Sichuan is that besides hanging Yang Liuzhi at the door and in front of the tomb, Sichuan women who love beauty will wear wicker on their heads on Tomb-Sweeping Day's day, which is called the willow leaf symbol.

Because Sichuan produces bamboo, bamboo also plays an important role in Tomb-Sweeping Day. In Tomb-Sweeping Day, every family will ask a Taoist priest to draw a paper symbol, hang it on a bamboo pole, and then hang it on the grave. As a necessary ceremony and step to go to the grave on Qingming Festival, it is "hanging green".

Sacrificing Vulcan at Vulcan Gate is also one of the unique customs in Sichuan. The day before Tomb-Sweeping Day was the Cold Food Festival, and people put out all the fires at home. People go to the Vulcan Gate in Tomb-Sweeping Day to worship Vulcan, and then they can make a new fire when they come back.

2. Hunan

Changsha calls sweeping graves "hanging mountains" and "the first three days and the last seven days", that is, the first three days and the last seven days in Tomb-Sweeping Day are the time for sweeping graves. There are a series of grave-sweeping sacrifices. Generally, it is necessary to clean up the cemetery first, pull out the weeds in the cemetery, and insert a "hanging mountain note" in front of the tomb to worship. It is best to finish the grave-sweeping worship before 3 pm.

Changsha's "Qingming inserting willows" is called "reminiscing about the past". The custom of "inserting willows" began in the Tang Dynasty, initially to ward off evil spirits, and later it had the meaning of decoration. According to traditional customs, flying kites can release your bad breath. Therefore, when flying kites in Tomb-Sweeping Day, many people write their diseases on kites and fly kites, which symbolizes taking away the dirty air.

3. Guangdong

Traditional Guangzhou people have always attached importance to sweeping graves on Qingming Day, and have the custom of "sweeping graves" on Zhengqing Day. "Walking" is different from hiking, which is an outing. "Walking" means that a group of people agree to go to the grave together on that day.

According to the old custom, when sweeping graves, people should bring food, wine, fruit, paper money and other items to the cemetery, offer food to the graves of their loved ones, then burn the paper money, cultivate new soil for the graves, break some green branches and insert them in front of the graves, then kowtow and worship, and finally go home after eating and drinking.

After the sacrifice in Guangzhou, it is not a complete form of offering sacrifices to pork. Family members will take pork home during the Qingming Festival and fry it with the vegetable "Qingming buckwheat dish". Others are too lazy to use this "Qingming buckwheat dish" with some shredded eggs and stir-fry some spring rolls. After eating these dishes, this year's "clearing the line" task will be completed.