Tomb Sweeping Day: Honor The Deceased

There aren’t many public holidays in Taiwan, and one of them is what so-called Tomb Sweeping Day or Qingming Festival (Qingming Jie); in Indonesia is known as Cheng Beng. This year Qingming Festival falls today, April 4. The history of Qingming Festival can be traced back to more than 2,500 years ago.

Some universities take this time for a spring break, just like my university, adding two days (Monday and Tuesday) as designated holidays, thus making a long break since Saturday (March 31) till Wednesday (April 4). Most students come back to their hometown to get together with their family, pay honor to their ancestors. Since Monday, rise in traffic in national highways has been observed, as reported by Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Families will go to their ancestors’ grave, cleaning the grave, and then put some offerings for the dead. The offerings are several kinds of food, fruits (such as oranges), and also “ghost money”. The family members will gather around the tomb and pray together, burning the “ghost money” and also some smoking incense. Then some yellow papers will be placed in the tombs as a symbol of new roof.

There aren’t many “real tombs”, outdoor ones (just like mausoleums) in Taiwan because of land scarcity and modernizations. If the deceased members of a family are not buried, they are cremated and their ashes are kept in a housing place, or sometimes a temple. If this is the case, then the family will visit the temple and do almost the same things except the cleaning part: give some offerings, burn incense and “ghost money”.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="people praying in the temple"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="lamp box for the deceased"][/caption]

It is a unique tradition worth to experience (to foreigners like me), since I find Taiwan is pretty much extreme in term of living style. Taiwanese (and particularly Taipeinese) are pretty much open-minded and modern people, living in a city full of skyscrapers, but still, they value the tradition of their Chinese culture, making such traditional festivals like Lunar New Year, Qingming Festival, and Dragon Boat Festival as big occasion. Families from all around Taiwan (and the world) will gather and they give tribute to their deceased family members. These past few days, my lab, which is usually full, is missing some of its local students since they go back to their hometown: Taichung (central Taiwan), Tainan and Kaohsiung (southern Taiwan). Temples are packed with people, and the smells of burning incense can be found almost everywhere.

Qingming Festival is also the sign of spring; people are expecting warmer days and stronger winds as winter finally passes.

Happy Tomb Sweeping Day!

-Citra (alone in lab, pretty unusual)

P.S All pictures are personal collection.