Qingming and Civilization-Prose

Text/Wei Laian

The stars run, the sun and the moon cycle, and in a blink of an eye, I came to Tomb-Sweeping Day. Tomb-Sweeping Day is a traditional national festival with a history of more than 2,500 years. It is not only a festival for people to pay homage to their ancestors, but also a traditional cultural festival. Tomb-Sweeping Day is called Walking Festival, Intelligent Festival, March Festival and Ghost Festival. On May 20th, 2006, the Ministry of Culture of China declared Tomb-Sweeping Day as an intangible cultural project, which was approved by the State Council and included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

At this point, the author thinks that the core of Tomb-Sweeping Day custom lies in remembering the ancestors, pursuing the future cautiously and inheriting the fine family style. The ritual sweeping of civilization is an important manifestation of changing customs. Traditionally, people tend to burn paper money to pay homage to the dead. However, open fire can easily lead to forest fires and environmental pollution. In recent years, local governments have made positive mistakes and guided people to pay a civilized sacrifice. For example, offering flowers instead of burning paper money. However, the change of the way of civilized sacrifice and sweeping is far from being completed overnight, and it takes a long time to transition. In this process, what we need to do is perseverance and perseverance.

Qingming culture is a dynamic upgrading process, and modern civilization should give Qingming culture new connotation. As a traditional culture, Qingming culture needs to get rid of its dross, take its essence, inherit civilization and constantly sublimate. Nowadays, popular social trends such as "online memorial service" and "flower memorial service" are also used to dig deep into the connotation of Qingming culture. This is precisely an important symbol of a strong cultural country and an eternal theme and an important link in building a socialist core value system.

As a cultural symbol, Qingming is not only the essence of culture, but also the epitome of civilization, which contains unique national feelings and spiritual core and represents a deep-rooted national complex. Tomb-Sweeping Day's becoming a national statutory holiday is definitely not a "simple return" and "salvation" to traditional culture, but a recognition of the roots of culture and national history and a continuation of the past on this basis. Sacrifice is a mode of infiltrating national identity, just like the pursuit of freedom and rights. Pursuing a sense of identity and belonging is also human nature. The traditional values based on "the ancestor of mankind" do not exclude the absorption of the excellent values of modern human beings such as equality, freedom and democracy, and make the sense of national identity and belonging have world significance and future value, which will provide inexhaustible emotional and spiritual resources for 2 1 century.

The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed "carrying forward Chinese traditional culture, building the spiritual homeland of the Chinese nation, making better use of traditional festivals, carrying forward the excellent traditional culture of the nation and promoting the construction of the socialist core value system." With the rapid development of economy, people's requirements for life began to change from the standard of living to the quality of life, and at the same time they were more eager to increase the spiritual content in their spiritual life. Tomb-Sweeping Day embodies the national spirit and emotion of the Chinese nation, carries the cultural blood and ideological essence of the Chinese nation, and is an important spiritual link to safeguard national unity, national unity and social harmony, with inestimable historical, cultural and economic value.

Tomb-Sweeping Day's problem lies in the form of grave-sweeping sacrifice. We have always advocated and respected "helping the poor and offering sacrifices to civilization", and the government and relevant departments have also taken some effective measures to this end. Practically speaking, some achievements have been made in this regard in the past two years. The dead are gone, but the descendants are still there. The inside should rest in peace, but the outside is full of firecrackers and cigarettes. Isn't it shocking that our ancestors strangled their relatives? How disrespectful! As for the mountain fire caused by burning paper incense, it goes without saying that the losses are heavy.

Here, I want to express my personal views with a poem called Qingming written by Gao Jujian, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty:

There are many tomb fields in the north and south hills, and the Qingming sweeps each other.

Paper ashes fly into white butterflies, and tears are dyed into red azaleas.

When the sun goes down, the fox sleeps in front of the grave, and the children smile at the lights when the night returns.

As long as you are alive, enjoy your wine and indulge yourself. In the grave after your death, you can't taste a drop.

All virtues should put filial piety first, inherit the traditional virtues of respecting, filial piety and loving the elderly, fulfill the obligation of supporting the elderly, and give them material help and spiritual comfort. Consciously abandon the bad behaviors such as throwing paper money in public places, burning paper to tie money, setting off fireworks and firecrackers, advocate civilized and thrifty funeral customs, and be the builder of Qingming civilization and new wind.