What month is Qingming Festival? What are the traditional customs of Qingming Festival?

The Qingming Festival is held on April 5 every year

The customs of the Qingming Festival are rich and interesting, in addition to forbidding fire and sweeping tombs, there are also a series of customs and sports activities, such as trekking, swinging on the swings, cuju, playing polo, and sticking willow. Legend has it that this is because of the Qingming Festival to cold food and fire ban, in order to prevent cold food and cold food injury, so people come to participate in some sports activities, in order to exercise the body.

Traditional customs of the Qingming Festival: tomb sweeping and ancestor worship

Chinese history, cold food ban on fire, pay tribute to ancestors, has long been a custom. After the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival was gradually forgotten, but the custom of sweeping tombs and paying homage to ancestors on the Qingming Festival has been passed down and has become an ongoing customary tradition since then. Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his poem "Cold Food Day": "The crows and magpies cry and the trees are darkened, who is crying at the Qingming Festival? The wind blows the paper money flying in the wilderness, and the ancient graves are full of green spring grass. The flowers of the pear tree are reflected in the white poplar tree, all of which are the places of separation between life and death. I can't hear the cry from the heavy springs in the darkness, and the people return to their homes in the evening rain."

Song Dynasty poet Gao Juqing also described in a poem: "There are many graveyards on the hills in the north and south, and the Qingming Festival is a great success. The ashes of paper fly as white butterflies, and the blood of tears stains the red azaleas. The fox sleeps on the mound at sunset, and a drop of it never reaches the Nine Springs!" In today's society, people still have the custom of visiting the graves before and after the Ching Ming Festival to pay homage to their ancestors: shoveling out weeds, placing offerings, offering incense and prayers in front of the graves, burning paper money and gold ingots, or simply offering a bouquet of flowers, in order to send a reminiscence of the ancestors.

Traditional customs of Qingming Festival II: trekking

Qingming season, spring back to the ground, the natural world everywhere present a vibrant scene, it is a great time for excursions. China's folk have long maintained the habit of Qingming trekking.

Traditional Customs of Qingming Festival 3: Cuju

Ju is a kind of leather ball, the ball skin made of leather, the ball inside the hair stuffed tight. Cuju, is to use the foot to kick the ball. This is a favorite game of the ancient Qingming Festival. It is said to have been invented by the Yellow Emperor, and its original purpose was to train warriors.

Traditional Customs of Qingming Festival IV: Swinging

Swinging is also an ancient Qingming Festival custom in China. Swinging, meaning migrating by the leather rope. Its history is very ancient, the earliest called the thousand autumn, after in order to avoid taboo, changed to swing. Ancient swing with tree branches for the frame, and then bolted on the ribbon made. Later gradually developed into a swing with two ropes and pedals. The play of swing was already popular in the North and South Dynasties.

The Jing Chu chronicle recorded: "Spring hanging long rope in the high wood, women and men dressed in colorful clothes sitting on it and push the lead, called playing the swing." Tang Dynasty swinging has been a very common game, and become an important part of the Qingming Festival customs. Because of the Qingming swing everywhere, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties set the Qingming Festival for the Swing Festival, the palace also set up swings for the queen, concubines, court ladies to play. Playing swing not only can improve health, but also can cultivate the spirit of bravery, so far for people, especially children love.

Traditional custom five: cockfighting

Ancient Qingming prevalent cockfighting games, cockfighting from the beginning of Qingming, fighting to the summer solstice. China's earliest record of cockfighting, seen in the "Zuozhuan". To the Tang Dynasty, cockfighting became a trend, not only is the civil cockfighting, even the emperor also participated in cockfighting. For example, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Xuanzong liked cockfighting the most.

Traditional custom six: shooting willow

Shooting willow is a game to practice archery skills. According to the Ming Dynasty, it is to put pigeons in a gourd, then hang the gourd high on a willow tree, bend the bow and shoot the gourd, the pigeons fly out, and the height of the pigeons fly to determine the winner.

Traditional Customs 7: Silkworm Flower Club

Silkworm Flower Club "Silkworm Flower Club" is the Silkworm Township, a unique folk culture, in the past during the Ching Ming Festival, Wutong, Wujin, Chongfu, Chauquan and other places have this folk activity. Among them to Chauquan's Maming Temple and Qingshi's double temple of silkworms will be the most exciting and grand. Maming Temple is located in Chauquan town west, in the local "king of the temple" said, every year silkworms will be a sea of people, frequent activities, there are welcome silkworm god, shake the fast boat, haunted the pavilion, worship incense stool, boxing, dragon lanterns, warping Gorgon, singing opera and other more than a dozen activities. Some of these activities are carried out on the shore, and the vast majority of them are carried out on the boat, which is very characteristic of the water town. In recent years, Wuzhen incense market activities in the silkworm flower, only to welcome the silkworm god, step on the white boat, warped pole and a few other projects, there is great potential to be dug.

Traditional custom eight: willow

Ching Ming Festival, Chinese folk custom of willow. Experts said that the Qingming willow custom, its source of the prevalence of three sayings.

Tianjin Astronomical Society Director Zhao Zhiheng introduced, it is said that the custom of willow, is to Qingming and willow to commemorate the "teach people to harvest" of the agricultural ancestor Shen Nong's. In some places, people put the willow branch, and then the willow branch, and then the willow branch, and then the willow branch, and then the willow branch, and then the willow branch, and then the willow branch. In some places, people stick willow branches under the eaves to forecast the weather, the old proverb has "willow green, rainy; willow dry, sunny days" said. Willow has a strong vitality, as the saying goes, "You plant flowers and flowers do not grow, no intention of willow into shade." Willow inserted into the soil on the living, inserted where, living where, year after year, willow, everywhere into the shade.

There is another way of saying that the Chinese people regard Ching Ming, July 30th and October 1st as the three major ghost festivals. Qingming Festival is the ghosts frequent, claiming much of the season. Influenced by Buddhism, Guan Shiyin holding a willow branch dipped in water, many people believe that willow has the role of repelling ghosts and evil spirits, the willow branch called "ghosts and horrors of wood". Northern Wei JiaSiFu "qimin yaojutsu" wrote: "take willow branches on the household, the ghosts do not enter the home." Since Qingming is a ghost festival, the willow sprouting season, people will have inserted willow wear willow to ward off evil spirits.

Another theory is that this custom is in honor of Jie Zi Tui. Jie Zi Tui burned himself under the willow tree in order to show his determination to keep his honor, which made the Duke of Jin and his ministers and the people of Jin feel very painful. The next year, when Duke Wen of Jin climbed up the mountain to pay homage to Jie Zi Tui, he found that the old willow tree, which had been burnt down that year, had actually come back from the dead. Duke Wen of Jin gave the old willow tree the name of "Qingming Willow", and broke off a few willow branches and put them on his head to show his nostalgia. From then on, the ministers and people followed suit, and it became a custom. Qingming willow wear willow become a symbol to commemorate the jiezi push.

Traditional custom nine: kite flying

Kite flying. Qingming kite flying is a popular custom. Qing people Pan Rong ah by the Imperial Capital Years and Years Records of Victory recorded: "Qingming tomb sweeping, the city men and women, out of the four outskirts of the drinking box, the wheel looking at each other. Each carries a paper kite spool, and after sweeping, it is put in front of the grave to win." Ancient people also think that the wind of Qingming is very suitable for kite flying. The Qingjia Records said, "Spring wind from the bottom up, the paper kite because of it, so there is a 'Qingming put off the harrier' of the proverb." In ancient times, kite-flying was not only a kind of amusement activity, but also a kind of witchcraft behavior: they believed that kite-flying could let go of one's own dirty qi. So when many people flew kites during the Qingming Festival, they wrote all the calamities and diseases they knew on the paper kite, and when the kite was flying high, they cut the kite strings and let the paper kite float away with the wind, symbolizing that they let the kite take away their own illnesses and unclean qi.

Traditional custom ten: tree planting

Before and after Qingming, the spring sun shines, the spring sun shines, the spring rain sprinkles, planting saplings with a high survival rate, fast growth. Therefore, since ancient times, our country has Qingming tree planting habits. Some people also call the Qingming Festival "Tree Planting Day". Tree-planting custom has been handed down to the present day. 1979, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress stipulated that every year on March 12 for China's Tree Planting Day. This is to mobilize the people of all ethnic groups to actively carry out activities to green the motherland, has a very important significance.