The Qingming Festival (清明节); meaning Clear and Bright Festival, is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice (or the 15th day from the Spring Equinox), usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar (see Chinese calendar). Every leap year, Qing Ming is on April 4. Its name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of springtime (踏青 Tàqīng, "treading on the greenery"), and also to tend to the graves of departed ones. It is an official public holiday in Taiwan, China as well as in Hong Kong and Macau but not in our country, Malaysia.
Tomb Sweeping Day and Clear Brightness Festival are the most common English translations of Qingming Festival.
On each Qingming Festival, all cemeteries are crowded with people who came to sweep tombs and offer sacrifices. Traffic on the way to the cemeteries becomes extremely jammed. The customs have been greatly simplified today. After slightly sweeping the tombs, people offer food, flowers and favorites of the dead, then burn incense and paper money and bow before the memorial tablet.
This year is a leap year, so the Qingming falls on 4th April. As a normal practice, the chinese can go to their ancestors grave sites 10 days before or after the actual day of the Qingming. Mostly we Sarawak chinese shall go before the actual day.
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