Customs, Food and Activities of Qingming Festival

Customs, food and activities of the Qingming Festival: eating green dumplings; eating eggs and painting colored eggs; trekking; sweeping tombs and paying homage to ancestors; and planting willows.

1, eat green dumplings

The custom of eating green dumplings on the Qingming Festival was only popular in the southern part of the country in the beginning, and with the inheritance of the food culture, and the spread of the food, it slowly made the custom of eating green dumplings in many places. Of course, different regions, the name of the green dumplings are not the same, some called "Qingming 馃", some called "Ai met", or called "Ai dough".

2, eat eggs, painted eggs

This is from the ancient allusion, as early as the pre-Qin era, there has been a clear order, the Qingming Festival fire ban custom.

People faced with a ban on fire, cooked hot food did not have to eat, can only be prepared before the arrival of the Qingming Festival can be put on the food, and boiled eggs and some buns are the best dry food.

Eating eggs on the Qingming Festival, symbolizing the reunion of the happy, many children, the new generation of offspring children, but also a symbol of the shell out, the meaning of excellence, and more commonly known as the "Qingming Festival to eat an egg, a whole year have a good body," the good significance.

And now there are places where the custom of painting colored eggs has also been passed down, that is, before the eggs are boiled in the pot, painted on the beautiful paintings, painted with beautiful colors, also known as the "colorful eggs".

3, trekking

The Chinese people since ancient times have been Qingming trekking custom. Qingming Festival in the mid-spring and late spring at the turn of the spring, spring has been thick, everything is full of vitality. It is a traditional custom inherited from ancient times and still practiced today to sweep the tombs and worship ancestors and to go trekking in the countryside. This seasonal folk custom of trekking has a long history in China, and its source is the ancient custom of welcoming spring by agricultural sacrifices, which has had a profound influence on later generations.

4. Tomb-sweeping and ancestor worship

Tomb-sweeping and ancestor worship is the center of Qingming Festival customs. In some places, the Qingming Tomb Sweeping is called "Sweeping the Mountain", "Worshiping the Qing" or "Worshiping the Mountain", "Hanging Relatives" and so on. Out of respect for the ancestors, or "go to the evil word and call for beauty" rhetorical habits. For example, the Qingming Festival tomb sweeping, the north called the grave, the southern coastal areas in order to avoid the "grave", "tomb" word, euphemistically known as "worship mountain".

5, willow

Ching Ming Festival, Chinese folk custom of willow. Some experts believe that the custom of willow, is to commemorate the "teach people to harvest" agricultural ancestor Shennong. In some places, people put willow branches under the eaves of the house to forecast the weather, the old proverb has "willow green, rainy; willow dry, sunny days" said.

The willow has a strong vitality, as the saying goes: "I plant flowers do not send, do not want to willow into shade." Willow inserted into the soil on the live, inserted where, live where, year after year, willow, everywhere into the shade.