Qingming Festival is a traditional festival in my country and the most important sacrificial festival. There are 25 ethnic groups in my country celebrating the Tomb-Sweeping Festival. The basic themes are tomb-sweeping, ancestor worship and outings. However, the customs of various places are different in the form of sacrifices and Tomb-Sweeping food, and they have distinct regional characteristics...

Tomb-Sweeping Festival is held in In Chinese tradition, it is a day for worshiping ancestors and sweeping tombs. Tomb sweeping, commonly known as visiting graves, is an activity to pay homage to the deceased. Most of the Han people and some ethnic minorities visit tombs during the Qingming Festival. Qingming Festival was also called March Festival in ancient times and has a history of more than 2,500 years. Qingming Festival falls around April 5th in the Gregorian calendar and is one of the twenty-four solar terms. Among the twenty-four solar terms, only Qingming is both a solar term and a festival.

According to the old custom, when sweeping the tomb, people should bring wine, food, fruits, paper money and other items to the cemetery, offer the food in front of the tomb of their loved ones, then burn the paper money, build new soil on the tomb, and fold a few branches. New green branches are planted on the grave, then they kowtow and worship, and finally go home after eating wine and food. Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Qingming": "It rains heavily during the Qingming Festival, and passersby on the road are dying. May I ask where the restaurant is? The shepherd boy pointed to Xinghua Village in the distance." It describes the special atmosphere of the Qingming Festival.

Qingming Festival, also called the Outing Festival, according to the Gregorian calendar, it falls between April 4th and 6th every year. It is the time when the spring scenery is beautiful and the grass and trees are green, and it is also the time when people go out for spring outings. It is a good time for outing (called outing in ancient times), so the ancients had the custom of outing during Qingming Festival and carrying out a series of sports activities.

To this day, the custom of worshiping ancestors and mourning deceased relatives during Qingming Festival is still very popular.

The customs of Qingming Festival are rich and interesting. In addition to banning fires and sweeping tombs, there are also a series of customary sports activities such as outing, swinging, Cuju, playing polo, and planting willows. According to legend, this is because cold food and fire are forbidden during the Qingming Festival. In order to prevent cold food and cold meals from harming the body, everyone comes to participate in some sports activities to exercise. Therefore, in this festival, there are both the sadness and tears of paying respects to new graves and the laughter of outings. It is a unique festival.

Colorful outdoor programs during the Qingming Festival

Swinging

This is an ancient Qingming Festival custom in my country. Swing means moving by holding on to the leather rope. It has a very ancient history. It was first called Qianqiu, but later was changed to Swing to avoid taboos. In ancient times, swings were mostly made of tree branches and tied with colorful ribbons. Later, it gradually developed into a swing with two ropes and pedals. Playing on the swing can not only improve health, but also cultivate bravery. It is still loved by people, especially children.

Cuju

Cuju is a kind of leather ball. The skin of the ball is made of leather and the inside of the ball is stuffed with hair. Cuju means kicking a ball with your feet. This is a game that people loved during the Qingming Festival in ancient times. According to legend, it was invented by the Yellow Emperor, and its original purpose was to train warriors.

Outing

Also called spring outing. In ancient times, it was called Tanchun, Xunchun, etc. On the Qingming Festival in March, spring returns to the earth, and nature presents a vibrant scene everywhere. It is a great time for outings. Chinese people have long maintained the habit of going outing during the Qingming Festival.

Planting trees

Around the time of Qingming, when the spring sun shines and the spring rain falls, the saplings planted have a high survival rate and fast growth. Therefore, since ancient times, our country has had the habit of planting trees during the Qingming Festival. Some people also call Qingming Festival "Arbor Day". The custom of planting trees has been passed down to this day. In 1979, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress stipulated that March 12th every year would be my country's Arbor Day. This is of great significance in mobilizing people of all ethnic groups across the country to actively carry out activities to green the motherland.

Kite flying

is also a favorite activity during the Qingming Festival. During the Qingming Festival, people not only play during the day but also at night. At night, strings of small colorful lanterns are hung under the kite or on the wind-stabilizing wire, like twinkling stars, and are called "magic lanterns." In the past, some people would cut the strings after flying kites into the blue sky and let the breeze carry them to the ends of the earth. It is said that this can eliminate diseases and disasters and bring good luck to themselves.

Sacrifice habits during the Qingming Festival in various places

Hainan folk worship ancestors and recite ancestral precepts during the Qingming Festival

When Hainan people worship their ancestors during the Qingming Festival, they also chant ancestral precepts The folk tradition of training clan rules.

Fu Cechao, president of the Hainan Provincial Intangible Culture Research Association, said that all Han people in Hainan are immigrants from the mainland. Before the Tang Dynasty, about 20,000 Han people moved to Hainan, about 100,000 people moved there during the Song Dynasty, and the number increased to more than 2 million during the Qing Dynasty. There are about 100 surnames in Ruqiong, and there are about 300 ancestors in Ruqiong. In order to commemorate the ancestors of the Qiong Dynasty, later generations have built "ancestral temples" in various places, and often hold sacrificial activities during the Qingming Festival. In these sacrificial activities, there are often eight-tone accompaniments, sacrificial texts are recited and sung, and the merits of the founder of Ruqiong are recalled.

"During folk sacrifices, ancestral injunctions and clan rules are also recited, and these sacrificial texts, ancestral precepts, and clan rules are all wonderful songs." Fu Cechao recited a small part of the talismans to reporters. The Three-Character Classic of Clan Instructions reads, "Love the motherland, be filial to parents, be friends with brothers and couples, be loyal to relatives, be united, be kind to neighbors, be cautious in making friends..." Listening to today, these ancestral mottos and songs still have educational significance.

When Hainanese people sweep their graves, they sacrifice pigs, geese, fish, cakes, fruits and snacks, and burn incense and turn them into treasures. There are also residents with the same surname who catch pigs and sheep to offer sacrifices to the tombs of their ancestors, praying for prosperity for future generations. There are two types of ancestor worship during the Qingming Festival. The first is to sacrifice "one's own ancestors". In one or several households, "three animals", dried rice and other sacrifices are placed in front of the ancestor's tablet at home, and everyone kneels down to worship. Later, sacrifices were made to the "ancestors", in units of dozens or hundreds of households, and all clans with the same surname participated. The prepared sacrifices are brought to the ancestors' graves to worship, the weeds are removed, and new soil is added.

Shanxi:

There is an old saying in Shanxi: "The drizzle on the Qingming Festival makes people mourn, the wild flowers bloom on Momo (Tufan) heads, and the sacrifices are in the hands and the spades are shouldered, all of which are the soil on the tombs of the ancestors. The ballad "Come" vividly summarizes the mood of the people at that time and the characteristics of tomb-sweeping.

In spring, people often repair their houses to prevent summer rain from leaking. Reminiscing from the living to the dead, the tombs in the fields often collapse due to exposure to wind and rain. The most important feature of visiting graves during the Qingming Festival is to eradicate weeds from the graves and use new soil to heighten and strengthen the graves. This is called repairing the graveyard, which expresses the grief of the children and grandchildren for their ancestors.

In the southern part of Shanxi, regardless of whether people are rich or poor, both men and women attend the graves, which means that all future generations are remembering their ancestors. In the northern region, visiting graves is mostly a matter for men, and women generally do not visit graves. In Datong, Pingyao and other places, in the evening, women in the old customs would burst into tears outside the gate. "The entire village was filled with mourning, and it was full of sadness that reached the ears."

When visiting graves during the Qingming Festival, most places in southern Shanxi do not burn incense or melt paper, but hang money and other objects on the graves. There is a saying that "the graves on the Qingming Festival are all white." The reason is that it is customary to prohibit fire during the Cold Food Festival, and Qingming Festival falls during the Cold Food Festival. In most places in northern Shanxi, all money and other items must be burned. The reason is that if they are not burned, they will not be transferred to the ancestors. Datong also had the habit of visiting graves during the day and burning money and silk at home at night.

In places such as Hequ in northwest Shanxi, it is an old custom to bring wine and food to the graves. After paying homage to the ancestors, they will eat and drink in the graveyard, which means drinking and eating with the ancestors. In places such as Wenxi in southern Shanxi, people use date cakes to roll around on the grave when visiting the grave. Legend has it that it is to scratch the itch of the dead old man. In Jiexiu and other places in the middle of Jin Dynasty, when visiting graves, offerings are flour cakes shaped like coiled snakes. After returning home, put the flour cake in the yard and let it dry in the sun before eating. The old people pay attention to curable diseases, which stems from the prohibition of cold food and fire.

After visiting the tomb in southern Shanxi, people should pull up some wheat seedlings when they return home and insert pine branches, cypress leaves or willow sticks on the door to ward off evil spirits. In northern Shanxi, wicker is often planted. In other places, some willow sticks are also inserted on the graves.

During the Qingming Festival, people in southern Shanxi make steamed steamed buns filled with walnuts, red dates, beans, etc., which are called Zifu. It means that your descendants will be blessed, all thanks to the blessings of your ancestors. Every family also makes black bean jelly, cuts it into thin pieces and pours it into soup. Shoveling withered grass and rubbing it on the kang mat is called driving away scorpions. In the southeastern part of Shanxi, people wear willow branches and dead leaves on their heads. Women should use gold-painted Caisheng (headgear) on their temples. In the northern Shanxi region, it is customary to raw black bean sprouts and eat them with corn bread and black bean sprout stuffing. In the northwest of Shanxi, people pay attention to grinding millet flour to make cakes, which is commonly known as "tanhuang'er". In Luliang area, on the day after the Qingming Festival, people have to pick up their daughters and invite their sons-in-law, which is commonly known as "fresh fire".

Taiwan:

Taiwanese people’s tomb-sweeping customs can generally be divided into two types: one is general sacrificial sweeping. The ceremony and sacrificial items are relatively simple, and most of them only offer some rice cakes. , rice cakes and cakes; the second is to repair the ancestral tombs, and the sacrifice ceremony is quite grand. The sacrifices generally include twelve kinds of vegetables, rice cakes, cakes, etc. as various sacrificial gifts. When sweeping the tomb, be sure to place "tomb papers" (cut into rectangular shapes from five-color paper) around the tomb. Each piece of paper should be pressed with small stones, and a stack should be placed on the tombstone. This ceremony is commonly known as "hanging paper", which is money dedicated to ancestors. If it is tomb repairing, that is, repairing the ancestral tomb, the whole family will gather around the tomb and eat red eggs. The eggshells will be scattered on the tomb, which has the auspicious meaning of metabolism and endless life. While sweeping the tomb, you should also pay homage to the Tugong (there is a small stone tablet) who has been standing by to guard the cemetery and the peace of the ancestors for a long time. On the one hand, it is to express condolences, and it also means to express gratitude. There is also a special custom in Taiwan. If there is a happy event in the family during this year, the tomb must be decorated when sweeping the tomb. A small red lamp (oil lamp) must be prepared to light in front of the tomb and taken home when returning home. It is said that it can attract more people. Joyful and auspicious.

Zhoushan:

Zhoushan people are commonly known as grave-sweepers, who go to the graves to pay homage to their ancestors. When paying homage, out of respect and memory for their ancestors, people first cut off weeds, trim the tomb trees, and move soil to build the tomb, so it is called tomb sweeping. Then, incense and candles are lit, and offerings such as snails, green cakes, strip cakes, and dishes are placed. The old-fashioned parents lead the whole family to kneel and kowtow, and the new-style bowing ceremony is performed. After the ceremony, bamboo flags are placed on the top of the tomb, paper money and ghost money are burned, and "mochi money" (mochi is green cake, whose shape is round or diamond-shaped) is distributed to the children who are watching the visit to the tomb. After visiting the grave, they still have to make "Qingming soup rice" when they return home.

Food Customs of Qingming Festival You Don’t Know

Qingming Festival, one of my country’s traditional festivals, falls on April 5 every year in the Gregorian calendar and has a history of more than 2,500 years. In addition to sweeping tombs and worshiping ancestors during the Qingming Festival, the food customs are also rich and colorful.

Qingtuanzi

During the Qingming Festival, there is a custom of eating Qingtuanzi in the south of the Yangtze River. Green dumplings are made by mashing a wild plant called "wheat straw" and squeezing out the juice. The juice is then mixed and kneaded with the dried pure glutinous rice flour, and then the dumplings are made. The filling center of the dumplings is made of fine sugar bean paste. When filling, a small piece of sugar lard is added. After the dumplings are made, put them into a basket and steam them. When they come out of the basket, use a brush to evenly brush the cooked vegetable oil on the surface of the dumplings, and you're done. Green dumplings are as green as jade, waxy and soft, with a fragrant fragrance. They taste sweet but not greasy, fat but not plump. Qingtuanzi is also a necessary food for people in Jiangnan area to worship their ancestors. Because of this, Qingtuanzi is particularly important in the folk food customs in Jiangnan area.

Sanzi

There is a custom of eating Sanzi during the Qingming Festival in the north and south of my country. "Sanzi" is a fried food, crispy and delicate, and was called "Han Ju" in ancient times. The custom of prohibiting fire and cold food during the Cold Food Festival is no longer popular in most parts of our country, but the dumplings related to this festival are deeply loved by the world. There are differences between the north and the south in the popular dumplings in Han areas: the northern dumplings are generous and free-spirited, with wheat noodles as the main ingredient; the southern dumplings are delicate and delicate, mostly made with rice noodles. In ethnic minority areas, there are many varieties of tanzi with different flavors, especially those of the Uyghur, Dongxiang, Naxi and Ningxia Hui ethnic groups are the most famous.

Qingming Fruit

Cotton cabbage (also known as rat grass) is picked from the fields in southern Zhejiang. It is called "Buddha grass" in Chinese herbal medicine books. It has the effect of relieving cough and reducing phlegm. Mix it with glutinous rice flour and pound it until soft, and stuff it with sugar bean paste or shredded white radish and spring bamboo shoots to make the Qingming fruit, which is steamed and turns green in color and tastes particularly delicious.

Every Qingming Festival, every household will make a food called Qingming fruit, which is used to pay homage to the ancestors when sweeping tombs. In my mind, the arrival of Qingming Festival means being able to taste the green and fragrant Qingming fruits.

The shape of Qingming fruit is somewhat like a dumpling, but the taste is completely different. The skin of the Qingming fruit is made of a plant called mugwort, a perennial herbaceous plant with small yellow flowers and small leaves shaped like those of the Compositae family, growing in clusters.

Every year before the Qingming Festival, women carry bamboo baskets and come to the fields in groups to pick mugwort leaves. The green and fresh mugwort leaves are piled in the baskets, which is really beautiful and attractive. After collecting the mugwort leaves and returning home, they began the complicated process of making Qingming fruit. The women were like magicians, and the green mugwort turned into delicious Qingming fruit in a blink of an eye.

Happy Tuan

People in Chengdu, Sichuan, use fried rice to make dough balls, thread them with threads, big or small, and dye them in various colors, which is called "Happy Tuan". In the old days, they were sold all the way from the north gate of Chengdu to "Huanxi Temple". There is a poem in "Miancheng Bamboo Branch Ci" written by the Qing Dynasty: "There is a joyful group in front of the 'Huanxi Temple', buying food in the spring suburbs. The village mash opera is more beautiful than gold, but many people are drunk in the footbath."

Painting Eggs

In some places, on the first night of the Qingming Festival, chicken and duck eggs are fried, dyed blue and yellow, and carved into paintings on the egg shells, and given as cold food gifts. It is said that eating painted eggs became popular throughout the country during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Date cake

Date cake is also called "Zitui cake". In some places in the north, yeast is used to make dough and steamed with dates. They also used to make jujube cakes in the shape of flying swallows, hang them on wicker sticks on the door, and eat them cold to commemorate Jie Zitui's noble character of not seeking fame or wealth.

Qingming snails

The Qingming season is the best time to eat snails. Because the snails have not reproduced at this time, they are the most plump and plump, so there is a saying that "Qingming snails are the best for eating snails." Goose". There are many ways to eat snails. They can be stir-fried with onions, ginger, soy sauce, cooking wine, and sugar; they can also be cooked and the snail meat can be picked out; If eaten properly, it can really be said that "snails and snails are all kinds of interesting, but not even the delicious wine can be compared with them."

In addition, throughout the north and south of my country, there is a custom of eating eggs, cakes, sandwich cakes, Qingming rice dumplings, steamed buns, Qingming cakes, dry porridge and other nutritious foods during the Qingming Festival.

Eat pizza and steamed Puzi Cake

Chaoshan people celebrate Qingming Festival with strong local color. Eating pizza: Eating pizza during Qingming Festival is very popular in Chaoshan, and almost every household is no exception. Divide the pancake crust. There are two parts to the filling and the skin is made by mixing flour and water into a sticky paste, and is baked in hot soil to form round sheets of cooked dough, which are as thin as paper. The fillings are divided into salty and sweet ones, consisting of eggs, meat, liver, and cured meats. Salty stuffing is made by mixing shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, leeks and other cooked ingredients; sweet stuffing is made with sugar and maltose specially processed into "candied green onions". When eating, roll it into a cylinder with a pancake skin and eat it.

Steamed Puzi Cake. There is a tree in Chaoshan called the Hackberry tree (also called the Hackberry tree, belonging to the family Ulmus), with oval leaves and fruits as big as mung beans and sweet in taste. Legend has it that during famine years, our ancestors picked these leaves to survive the famine. During the Qingming Festival, the climate becomes warmer, the vegetation is luxuriant, and the leaves of hackberry are full of green leaves. In order not to forget the past, later generations collected the leaves during the Qingming Festival, pounded them with rice into powder, fermented them with sugar, and steamed them in pottery molds to make Puzi Cake. There are two types of plum blossom type and peach type, also called bowl fermented peach cake. of. The cake is light green in color and tastes very sweet. It is said that eating it can relieve accumulated heat and eliminate diseases.

Fujian She Nationality’s Qingming Wu Ning Rice

The period for ancestor worship and tomb sweeping in Fujian and Taiwan provinces varies from Qingming to Guyu, depending on the county (city). In Ningde, Zhouning, Shouning and other places in eastern Fujian, the whole clan usually goes out to worship ancestors' tombs. More recently, the clan holds banquets at the ancestral hall and gathers for a banquet. At that time, the whole family, men, women, old and young all arrived, which was considered a unique reunion in Eastern Fujian.

During the Qingming Festival, most people in eastern Fujian, both in urban and rural areas, have the custom of eating mustard greens. It is said that eating "mustard rice" cooked with mustard greens and rice on February 2 every year can prevent scabies all year round. There is also a custom of cooking loach noodles to worship ancestors and give them away on March 3rd. Moreover, during this period, in many cities and villages in eastern Fujian, you can also eat a kind of food rich in eastern Fujian characteristics, that is, spring chrysanthemums and golden cherry blossoms are mixed into ground rice milk and cooked into seasonal snacks. The snacks are rich in country flavor.

In addition, regarding Qingming food customs, we must mention the She family's "Wu Ning Rice" because Eastern Fujian is where the She people live. Every year on the third day of March, every household of the She people cooks "Wunen rice" and gives it as a gift to Han relatives and friends. Over time, the local Han people also have the custom of eating "Wunen rice" during the Qingming Festival. Especially people in Kurong County must use "Wunen rice" to offer sacrifices every year.

According to the folklore of the She people: In the second year of the Tang Dynasty, Lei Wanxing, a hero of the She people, led the She army to fight against the officers and soldiers, and was besieged in the mountains. It was a severe winter and there was no food supply. The She army had no choice but to pick Wu Ni fruits to satisfy their hunger, so Lei Wanxing led his troops down the mountain on the third day of the third lunar month and broke out of the siege. From then on, every March 3rd, Lei Wanxing would always gather soldiers and generals to hold a banquet to celebrate the victory of the breakout. He also ordered the soldiers of the She army to collect Wu Ning leaves and have the military chef prepare "Wu Ning rice" for the whole army to have a full meal as a commemoration. The method of making this "Wu Nin Rice" is not complicated. Wash the picked Wu Nin leaves, boil them in clean water, remove the leaves, then soak the glutinous rice in the Wu Nin soup, soak for 9 hours and then remove it. , steam it in a steamer basket, and eat it when cooked. The prepared "Wu Ning rice" is not very beautiful in appearance and is dark in color. However, the rice is fragrant and has a unique flavor compared with ordinary glutinous rice. In order to commemorate the national hero, the She people would steam and eat "Wu Ning Rice" every March 3rd every year. As time went by, it became a She family custom. In addition, because She and Han people lived together in the eastern Fujian area, people got along well with each other throughout the generations, and marriages were frequent, so eating "Wunen Rice" has become a Qingming food custom shared by all ethnic groups in eastern Fujian.

Quanzhou Pancake Dishes

During the Qingming Festival, Quanzhou people have the custom of eating "Run Pancake Dishes". It is said that this is a legacy of the ancient cold food diet custom.

The correct name of "Runbing Cai" should be spring cakes. Eating runcakes during Qingming Festival is not only unique to Quanzhou, but also popular among Xiamen people. According to legend, the person who pioneered this way of eating was Cai Fuyi, a Tongan native who served as the governor of Yunnan, Guizhou and Huguang Military Affairs in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Tong'an was under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou Prefecture, so this way of eating spread and became a household name in southern Fujian. However, the form of spring cakes in various parts of southern Fujian is the same, but the content is very different.

Quanzhou’s “Run Bing Cai” is made from flour and baked into a thin crust. It is commonly known as “Run Bing” or “Run Bing”. When eating, roll out the crust and roll shredded carrots and pork. , oyster omelette, turnip and other mixed pot dishes are simple to prepare and taste sweet and delicious. Jinjiang's "moist cake dishes" are much more complicated. The main ingredients of the "moist cake dishes" must be diverse, and there is a table full of them. There are some main dishes: peas, bean sprouts, dried tofu, fish ball slices, shrimps, diced meat, fried oysters, and radish dishes. There are also some ingredients: crispy seaweed, fried egg shreds, peanut paste, turnips, and garlic shreds. When eating, you must use two "moisten cake skins" to ensure that it is not burst by the rich content. For most people, 2 rolls of this crispy, luscious, mellow and delicious delicacy is enough.

However, Jinjiang's "moisten cake dishes" are not the most complicated; in terms of complexity, Xiamen should be the most complicated. The main ingredients used in Jinjiang are all available in Xiamen. In addition, bamboo shoots, fish, fried flat fish and fried leeks are added, and then dipped in mustard, spicy sauce, and sweet sauce. This is called authentic Xiamen "pancake."

Li cheese and ring cakes

"Jingchu Sui Sui Ji" records: "On the 15th day of the Winter Festival, there will be strong winds and even rain, which is called cold food." Ban fire for three days and make barley porridge. "Ye Zhong Ji" also says: "Three days of cold food are used to make cheese." Li cheese is a kind of almond wheat porridge prepared with maltose. Until the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it was still the main food of the Cold Food Festival. In addition, Jia Sixie's "Essentials for Qi Min" also records another cold food festival food - ring cakes. "Huanbing, a cold tool, uses honey to mix water to soak the noodles." It is fried until golden brown and can be eaten. The taste is extremely crispy and very similar to today's dim sum.

Jujube Feiyan

During the Qingming Festival in the Song Dynasty, in addition to ready-made foods such as thick glutinous rice cakes, wheat cakes, cheese, and milk cakes sold in the market, people also made their own homemade The swallow-shaped pasta is called "Jujube Flying Swallow". It is said that it was used as a sacrifice to worship Jie Zitui in the past. People in the Ming Dynasty would also leave part of the jujube and fry it in oil for the children at home to eat at the beginning of summer. It is said that after eating it, they can avoid summer rot.

Qingjing Rice

Chen Yuanliang (about 1225-1264) recorded in Volume 15 of "Sui Shi Guang Ji" quoted in "Lingling Zong Ji" Another cold food festival food, 'Qingjing rice': 'Yangtong leaves, fine holly, especially those growing near water. When people encounter cold weather, they eat the leaves and dye them into rice. The color is green and shiny, and the food supplies Yang Qi. It is called Yangtong rice, and Taoists call it Qingjing rice and stone rice. 'The custom of eating cold food and dyeing green rice during Qingming Festival seems to be more popular in the south.

Volume 43 of "Qi Xiu Lei Manu" written by Lang Ying (1487--after 1566, from Hangzhou) mentions the "green and white dumplings" eaten during the Cold Food Festival. This kind of green dumpling is made by pounding glutinous rice with brome grass juice, and the filling is mostly date paste or bean paste. Before adding the steamed bean sprouts, put new reed leaves on the bottom. After steaming, the color will be a lovely green color and the fragrance of reed leaves will be present. It is a very popular Qingming Festival food.