What is Qingming Festival and Cold Food Festival? 清明節 | 寒食節

Hello everyone, I’m Ally It’ll be the Qingming Festival soon on April 5th. It’s one of the most important traditional festivals in Chinese culture. Have you also heard of the Cold Food Festival? It's a lesser known festival today but very big in ancient times. In today’s China, people mainly just visit and sweep their ancestral tombs on Qingming Festival. But in ancient China, these two festivals shared a lot more interesting and fun activities So let’s find out about their history and origin, And all the custom of the Qingming and Cold Food Festivals The Qingming Festival, sometimes stylized as Ching Ming Festival, wasn't always a festival. It was originally a Jieqi or solar term There are a total of 24 solar terms in a year according to the traditional Chinese calendar And each solar term last for 15 days The Qingming Festival falls on the first day of the Qingming solar term According to Han Dynasty records The Qingming solar term happens 15 days after the Spring Equinox. During this time of the year, everything becomes clear and neat, That’s why it’s called qingming, which translates to clear or pure brightness Therefore this Qingming Festival is also called the Clear Brightness Festival Or the Pure Brightness Festival The Cold Food Festival on the other hand is usually observed a few days before the Qingming Festival. Today it falls on the day before Qingming But in ancient times, people would observe it for much longer Such as 3 days, 10 days, or even a whole month Now why do people spend a whole month on these festivals? To answer this question, let’s look at the history and origin of the Cold Food Festival The Cold Food Festival is called Hanshi Festival in Chinese. Hanshi translates to cold food in English As the name suggests, it’s a festival where people eat cold food. It’s commonly believed that this festival was developed as a local commemoration Of the death of a nobleman Jie Zitui during the Spring and Autumn Period. The story goes, in the year 655 BC, nobleman Jie Zitui followed his master Prince Chong’er to exile. They were in exile for 19 years and suffered a lot of hardships One time, they ran out of food and the prince was so hungry that he couldn’t move anymore. Jie Zitui then cut flesh from his own thigh to feed the prince, which allowed him to survive After 19 years, they finally went back to the state of Jin, and the prince became the duke Jie Zitui decided to retire and lived with his elderly mother in the forest. The duke wanted to reward him so he went to the forest but couldn’t find them He then ordered his men to set fire to the forest in order to force Jie Zitui to come out But in the end, Jie Zitui and his mom never came out And they were found burned alive in the forest The duke regretted his decision And ordered that from now on no one should light a fire on the date of Jie Zitui’s death There were many records later on About the practice of not using fire as a memorial period for Jie Zitui. For example, during the Eastern Han dynasty A state official Zhou Ju was assigned to govern the city of Taiyuan. He found the local residents would not use fire for an entire month And only eat cold food on the month that Jie Zitui died. The old and the young were suffering from this practice and many died as a result Zhou Ju didn’t think this old practice was the proper way of honoring the royal and self-sacrificing nobleman Jie Zitui So he ordered to build a temple for Jie Zitui And asked people to eat warm food instead. And the practice has improved since then By the Jin dynasty Records showed that people would not use fire for only 3 days in the city of Taiyuan This local practice was then spread out to entire China And even passed on to neighboring countries. However, it’s still debated that Jie Zitui was the reason That the Cold Food Festival was started in the first place According to the Rites of Zhou, Citizens were reminded to not use fire in the second month of spring. The same applies to soldiers in the military In the early days of Chinese history People used four different types of wood as firewood for the four seasons. It was important to change the firewood when the season changed. As a custom, people would not burn fire for a few days in between the changing seasons So they could completely bid farewell to the past and welcome the new season So some people believed that Eventually this firewood changing practice was combined with the commemoration of Jie Zitui And developed into the Cold Food Festival Since the Cold Food Festival and Qingming Festival were often observed together Their customs have also influenced and merged with each other The weather usually gets warmer around this time So people would do many outdoor activities. After people were done with tomb sweeping They would stroll around on grass, and this activity was called Taqing Which translates to stepping on the green. Kite flying was also a very popular activity. Boys and girls would fly kites to compete with each other And while they were out, everyone including men, would find willow trees and break off a small piece of willow branch And put it in their hair. It was believed to make the person healthy and have clear vision. Every household would also hang willow branches in front of their doors and from their roof. According to Song dynasty records During the Hanshi and Qingming Festivals The capital city would be filled with willow branches on every house Even in deep alleys The scene was very lovely, but since everyone was doing it Willow branches became very scarce. So a poem wrote that, “Don’t break off all the willow branches there will still be people coming out tomorrow.” Another Song dynasty poet wrote “If your heart is not weighed down by secular matters It makes no difference if you wear a willow branch on your head or not.” Some other symbolic activities were soccer and swinging. Boys would be playing soccer and ladies would be playing on the swing A poem described that people knew the Cold Food Festival was coming If they saw people playing soccer. A Ming dynasty eunuch also described how people celebrated the festivals in the palace He wrote, when it’s Qingming Festival’s time People wore willow branches on their hair. In each of the queen’s and concubine’s quarters, a swing would be installed. But among all historical accounts for swinging I was really surprised and impressed by one particular record about the county of Shouguang. It was recorded that on the dates of Hanshi and Qingming People would place a huge and tall piece of wood vertically in the middle of the county’s center plaza Install a wheel on top, and hang swings all around the wheel. Strong men would rotate the tree And ladies wearing fancy clothes and beautiful makeup would ride the swing It looked like they were flying in the wind And all of their colorful clothing made it look like butterflies flapping in the air. I mean, isn’t this the swing carousel or chair swing ride in amusement parks? Except this version is not powered by electricity, but by men There were also other activities, like playing tug of war, cockfighting and more. In terms of food People would cook porridge with almond powder beforehand to eat on the Cold Food Festival And eat Qingtuan, a type of green mochi for Qingming festival. I hope you learned something new in today’s episode. Which activities are your favorite during the Hanshi and Qingming Festival? Is there anything else you want to learn about Chinese culture? Let me know in the comments. Also, starting from now on I will be publishing my videos first on a new platform called Ganjing World. Ganjing World is a clean and family-friendly platform, free from harmful, violence, and sexual content. It’s my goal to bring uplifting and positive energy to the world And Ganjing World is the best platform to be on. I’ll put the link in the description below. Thank you for watching. I’ll see you next time!