The tomb-sweeping day, honoring the dead and paying respects to ancestors
For many Westerners, the final days of April symbolize rebirth and new beginnings, especially when Easter—which can fall during this period—adds spiritual resonance to the season. In China, however, April begins with a different kind of reflection: the Qingming Festival (清明节), or Tomb-Sweeping Day, a time devoted to honoring the dead.
This contrast, while seemingly paradoxical, is actually a meaningful coincidence that invites reflection. In recent years, it’s happened more than once that Lent coincided with Chinese New Year, and Easter overlapped with or fell near Qingming. These moments highlight how death and life, endings and rebirth, weave together in unexpected ways—shaped by the interplay of lunar and solar calendars.
During this season in China, it’s easy to come across tombs you might not have noticed before. While formal cemeteries are relatively few, many people are buried in fields or forests, marked simply by a mound of earth, sometimes with a tombstone, and sometimes with nothing more than the mound itself.
One way to recognize these graves is by the brightly colored artificial flowers placed on them. These decorations reveal what might otherwise seem like unremarkable patches of ground. To outsiders, China might appear overly materialistic—but beneath this surface lies a strong sense of spiritual continuity and reverence for ancestors, expressed through offerings and remembrance.
Besides flowers, people leave sweets and symbolic items their ancestors might need in the afterlife. In northern China, this often takes the form of printed sheets depicting houses, banks, fruit, and vegetables—everyday essentials for the afterlife. In the south, offerings become more elaborate: cardboard replicas of shoes, clothing, villas, banks, computers, and mobile phones are commonly found.
Everywhere, one finds the ubiquitous “money”—banknotes with fantastical denominations, such as 100,000 yuan—burned as spiritual currency. These items are set alight in small street-corner fires, believed to deliver the offerings to departed loved ones as spring awakens the land once more.
I remember a moment from a few years ago, early in April, when I was walking home and passed two women tending a small fire. As they burned paper offerings, one woman exclaimed, “I’m sending my dad a supermarket!” I’ve always admired her for that—practical, imaginative, and generous. Unsure of what her father might need, she simply gave him everything.
In the village where we live, we haven’t seen many fires, but we’ve noticed bright sheets placed atop burial mounds, secured with stones. I haven’t asked our neighbors directly, but I suspect the tradition of burning is avoided here due to the risk of forest fires, given the abundance of dry leaves. Instead, it’s the spring wind—persistent and strong—that carries their offerings skyward, a gentler delivery to the ancestors.
