Why do Hakkas sweep graves around Mid-Autumn Festival?

The main reason is that Tomb-Sweeping Day is in the busy period of spring ploughing, so it is difficult to arrange sacrifices and don't want to delay farm work.

"There are many rains during the Qingming period, and pedestrians on the road want to break their souls." Qingming is one of the twenty-four solar terms of the lunar calendar, usually at the end of February and the beginning of March. In ancient times, the first two days (or one day) in Tomb-Sweeping Day was a cold food festival to commemorate Mianshan's burning of Jietui's mother and son in the Spring and Autumn Period. People forbid fireworks and only eat cold food. Later, due to the close distance between the two festivals, they merged into one festival.

After the Tang and Song Dynasties. The main activities in Tomb-Sweeping Day are grave sweeping, tree planting and outing. Ancient customs include spring and autumn festivals, spring festivals on Qingming Festival and autumn festivals on Chongyang Festival. Therefore, the custom of sweeping graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day, which has been inherited since the Han Dynasty, has become a traditional festival to sweep graves and worship ancestors in Han areas of China. However, in the custom of Hakka in Yongding, Fujian, people will not worship their ancestors in Tomb-Sweeping Day. The custom of sweeping graves by Hakkas in Yongding is carried out in the first month of each year. Such a special custom stems from the special feelings of Yongding Hakka.

Hakkas call sweeping graves "shoveling the ground", which means shoveling grass in the cemetery.

At present, people in Meizhou spend a lot of time sweeping graves, not necessarily during Tomb-Sweeping Day, but in August, Chongyang and around the Spring Festival. According to the old custom, Tomb-Sweeping Day, a Hakka, does not visit graves. Generally, there are two festivals, Spring and Autumn, which are in February or September of the lunar calendar.

The main reason is that Tomb-Sweeping Day is in the busy period of spring ploughing, so it is difficult to arrange sacrifices and don't want to delay farm work. But now, in Hakka areas, there are more and more grave-sweepers in Tomb-Sweeping Day. In Luchuan, Guangxi, Chongyang is basically used to sweep graves, called burning paper or worshipping mountains.