March 3 rd festival
In Jianghuai and Jiangnan areas, the third day of the third lunar month is called Ghost Festival every year. It is said that ghosts haunt this day. At night, every household sets off firecrackers in every household to scare away ghosts and drive them away.
Qingming Festival
Also known as the outing festival, according to the solar calendar, it is between April 4 and 6 every year. It is a season of bright spring and lush vegetation, and it is also a good season for people to go for a spring outing (called outing in ancient times). Therefore, the ancients had the custom of clearing the sky and carrying out a series of sports activities. To this day, the most familiar custom in Tomb-Sweeping Day is to worship ancestors and mourn the dead relatives.
July 14/15
According to legend, from July 1st every year, the King of Yan ordered the gates of hell to be opened wide, so that the ghosts who suffered and were imprisoned in hell all the year round could get out of hell, get a short stroll and enjoy human blood. Therefore, people call July a ghost month, and this month is considered as an unlucky month, neither getting married nor moving.
Every year, the 14th/15th day of the seventh lunar month is Magnolia Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, July 30th or Ghost Festival. In the past, people prepared some vegetables, wine, rice, gold, silver, clothes and paper at the intersection on this night to offer sacrifices to ghosts and gods.
On July 14/ 15, the tolerance festivals and customs are complicated, including folk ghost festivals, Taoist Mid-Yuan festivals, Buddhist Bonihara festivals, and festivals combining Buddhism, Taoism and Buddhism. Many places in China will hold activities such as offering sacrifices, worshipping Buddha, sweeping graves, reviewing, enjoying flowers and fishing to celebrate.
The first day of October
The first day of October is called "October Dynasty", also known as "ancestor worship festival". Since ancient times, China has had the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors in the new harvest season to show filial piety and not forget one's roots. So people also use millet on the first day of October? Sacrifice ancestors. On the first day of October, ancestor worship, including family sacrifice and tomb sacrifice, is held in both north and south. Today, in many areas south of the Yangtze River, there is also the custom of offering sacrifices to new graves on the first day of October. The first day of October is also the first day of winter, and then the climate is getting colder. People are afraid that their ancestors' souls in the underworld are short of clothes and clothes. Therefore, in addition to food, incense sticks, paper money and other general offerings, there is also an indispensable offering-ghost clothing. When offering sacrifices, people incinerate ghost clothes to their ancestors, which is called "sending cold clothes". Therefore, the first day of October is also called "Clothing Burning Festival".
Later, the custom of "burning cold clothes" changed in some places. Instead of burning cold clothes, people burned a lot of ghost paper in a paper bag with the names of the recipients and senders and their corresponding names written on it. This is called "baggage". There is a name of cold clothes, but there is no reality of cold clothes. People think that the underworld, like the dead, can buy many things with money.