Xuzhou Tomb-Sweeping Day custom

Xuzhou Tomb-Sweeping Day customs are as follows:

Tomb-Sweeping Day is the first of the three "ghost festivals" in Xuzhou people's customs (the other two are the Mid-Autumn Festival, the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the Cold Clothes Festival and the first day of the tenth lunar month). In the past, Xuzhou people worshipped their ancestors more ceremoniously on this day. Qingming, fresh air and clear scenery mean that the spring peak season is full of birds and flowers, and the weather is often fresh and bright, warm as spring.

A day or two before Tomb-Sweeping Day is the Cold Food Festival. People in Xuzhou only eat cold food, and smoking is forbidden. This custom prevailed in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. Later, it was gradually merged into Tomb-Sweeping Day, and customs such as sweeping, outing, swinging and cockfighting were added.

On Qingming Day, willow branches should be inserted in front of every household in Xuzhou, commonly known as "bright eyes". Old people in Xuzhou also have the saying of "inserting willows to summon souls". Near Tomb-Sweeping Day, Xuzhou people began to pay homage to their ancestors. When you go to the grave, in addition to wine, delicacies and incense, you should also add soil to the ancestral grave, commonly known as "adding the grave."

The family tidied up neatly, cleaned up the weeds and painted the words on the tablet with red paint. Then tell the children the story of their ancestors, and then burn incense, paper and worship God every step of the way. When I was a child, my elders led their children to the grave to worship their ancestors. When they grow up, children lead their own children. Parents and children, that is, in this life, keep watching their backs drift away.

After going to the grave, the tribute will be used for a picnic, which means "cold food". There will be a spring outing after the picnic. Children will also fly kites and pick wild vegetables with adults. Children in rural areas will also look for graves in groups of three or five during this period, holding brooms and dustpans and collecting burnt paper and tin foil ashes. Because there is tin in the paper foil, it can be refined and then sold. It is commonly known as "gold and silver ash" when it is sold.

Perhaps in the hearts of most Xuzhou people, ancestor worship may not believe in ghosts and gods, but I believe that the love of relatives will not disappear. They just moved to another place and lived in our hearts. After the completion of the memorial tower for martyrs in Huaihai Campaign, Xuzhou people have another place to go in Qingming. After the memorial service under the tower, it is still a spring outing and a picnic in the suburbs.

Eclipse custom in Tomb-Sweeping Day, Xuzhou

The special foods in Xuzhou are steamed vegetables and green jiaozi. Xuzhou proverb: "Elms are not old in February, but old in March". This refers to the relationship between beginning of spring and sooner or later. Xuzhou customs, Qingming loves to eat "steamed fish money." But if beginning of spring only comes after the Spring Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day's money will be too old to eat.

In addition to elm seeds, you can also pick more wild vegetables such as jujube seedlings, old people's heads and shepherd's purse to steam during the Qingming period. The same wild vegetables can be chopped into noodles and green dumplings, steamed and cooked, or steamed and cooked into vegetables.