Remembering China’s Dead: African, Asian Journalists Celebrate Qingming Festival

The three-day national holiday is used to pay homage to dead relations by sweeping their tombs.

Chinese people, just like Africans, are so attached to their ancient traditional practices. One of them is the Qingming or Tomb-sweeping Festival, a three-day national holiday, which this year lasts from April 3-5, 2017. The event, which often falls in the first week of April, honours dead relations and commemorates the onset of the Spring season.

On April 2, 2017, some 42 African, South Asian and South-East Asian journalists on exchange programme - all dressed in ancient Chinese traditional attire - joined in marking Qingming. The celebration at the Liuyin Park in the Chinese capital, Beijing, involved poetry recitations by children, singing by women, Chinese language calligraphy practice sessions, the putting on of fresh willow stem “crowns” and planting of willow cuttings on a symbolic tomb by the guests.

According to Gao Yuan, a teacher with the Beijing International Chinese Language College - who has deep understanding of the culture - Tomb-sweeping Day is for Chinese families to remember their dead by visiting public cemeteries where their ashes are kept to clean the tombs. “It is to celebrate the coming of the warm Spring season after a cold Winter. The day also represents hope. We hope that on this day everything is fine just like flowers and plants begin to blossom with the onset of Spring. The poetry recitations and singing were all done in ancient Chinese in honour of the dead; while the planting of willow cuttings...