Chinese Culture: Qing Ming Jie

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Qing Ming Jie

Mei Lan

Qing Ming Jie, or "Grave Sweeping Day," is a traditional holiday associated with the folk practice of honoring one's ancestors. It occurs two weeks after the vernal equinox, (usually April 4,5, or 6) heralding not only the lengthening of days but also the beginning of the planting season.

Families visit the grave sites of past members to burn spirit money and other paper goods, offer food, and do a general tidy-up of the graveyard. Meanwhile, cherry trees are in blossom, the temperature begins to warm rapidly, outdoor activities are happening again - what could be better than a daytime trip to the family grave?

Like most practices based on agrarian principles, there's a heady mix of life and death in Qing Ming Jie. The name itself, 清明节, literally means "clear bright festival," denoting the importance of spring and renewal. According to older texts, the festival used to be celebrated with activities such as picnics and courtship dancing between young girls and boys. As time went on, the more somber association of death became prevalent, with descendants tending the family graveyard and making offerings to ancestors, who were ensured that they remained remembered for at least one more year.

One reason for this may lie in an edict by Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty, who declared in 732 AD that Qing Ming Jie was the official day to pay respects to the dead. This was an effort to curb the elaborate expenses and time spent on ceremonies to honor ancestors, which would occur as frequently as every two weeks. The fact that Confucius criticized the expense of practices associated with the dead as far back as 500 BC underscores the importance of these rituals in Chinese folk belief. Even today, practices of honoring one's ancestors occur throughout the year, although Qing Ming Jie is still seen as one of two important days for these practices (the other being "Ghost Day," which occurs after the autumn equinox).

The activities of present-day Qing Ming Jie are grounded in the folk belief that the ancestors live in the spirit world, or ming jie (冥界). The dead, part of the spirit hierarchy, inhabit "shadow space," or yin jian (阴 间), and are able to wield influence over the world of the living, granting blessings such as a successful harvest, numerous sons, or other signs of good fortune. (Yin jian is in contrast to yang jian, or 阳间, the "sun" or "living" space. The characters are the same yin/yang that characterize Chinese philosophy and religion.) In return, the dead are provided for by their descendents, who offer gifts and food to secure a comfortable afterlife for their loved ones.

A common offering is spirit money (冥币 ming bi); burning spirit money ensures wealth and status for your ancestor, and also has a more practical application of allowing the deceased to bribe annoying "ghost" officials, judges, and department heads. As a famous Sinologist once commented, "Only the Chinese would conceive of the afterlife as a giant bureaucracy."

Spirit money and other imitation goods made out of paper such as cars, clothes (阴衣 yin yi), houses (阴 宅 yin zhai), and even cell phones are burned in special furnaces in graveyards. These furnaces have 12 oven doors, each corresponding to an animal in the Chinese zodiac, and relatives will burn offerings in the portal of the dead ancestor's birth, not death, year. These furnaces are much more common in Beijing, where the burning of spirit money at gravesites has been illegal since 1995, due to fire hazards during this particularly dry time of the year. As an alternative to burning offerings at the grave site, descendents will leave chrysanthemum flowers at the grave, as the petals of this flower are akin to the "flame" image when burning offerings.

Equally as interesting is the communication with the dead that seems to characterize the many stories surrounding Qing Ming Jie, as if it was during this time of the year that the "border" between the yin and yang space becomes more permeable. Even today, these stories are discussed and circulated around with a startling bluntness that requests seriousness from the listener as well as suspension of most rational thought. Throughout these stories is the common theme of pleasing one's deceased ancestors, or making sure that they are remembered and do not become "hungry ghosts." In short, these stories indicate that the displeasure of an ancestor doesn't stop when he/she leaves this earth; rather it continues on for...well, forever, basically.

Grounded in folk belief, practices surrounding the honoring the dead (aka ancestor worship) span across the various religions of China like Buddhism or Taoism, influencing them so that it is often difficult to determine a folk practice from a religious practice. To add to complications, the detailed and complex relationship between the world of the dead and the living can also be locale-specific, with beliefs changing from place to place. Since 1949, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, these practices have been frowned upon, a viewpoint that the atheist communists seem to share with a recent burgeoning religion in China - Christianity. Still, despite attempts to contain practices and the "modern" mentality of the Chinese, the traditions of Qing Ming Jie and associated practices remain alive and well to this day.

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