Qingming and the Cold Food Festival

by Robert Smitheram, PhD

[Editor's note: The BUZZ is blessed with an abundance of talented friends. After we published James Fee's fine column on Qingming--including a wonderful personal perspective--our friend Robert Smitheram sent us this piece on both Qingming and the Cold Food Festival. We decided to run it as a Feature Article to augment and complement James' piece. Enjoy!]

Qingming is a spring festival and unlike most Chinese festivals, the date of its occurrence varies only slightly from year to year on the Western (solar) calendar, generally falling on either the 5th or 6th of April (the 4th if it's a leap year). This is because Qingming ("pure and bright") is one of the Twenty-four Solar Terms of the traditional Chinese calendar, which also include the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes. As part of the seasonal cycle, Qingming has always served as an important date for agricultural activity; such ancient adages as "plant melons and beans around the time of Qingming," and "for planting trees and creating groves, don't go past Qingming," sound like good advice offered by any farmer's almanac.

Qingming has also marked the traditional date when the Chinese honor their ancestors. This generally involves a visit to the family gravesite, where family members sweep the place clean of weeds and brambles that have grown up over the previous twelve months and hold a ceremonial feast at the gravesite to honor the dead. This is why the festival is also known as "Grave-sweeping Day" or the Chinese "Memorial Day." In ancient times, there were many different festivals for honoring one's ancestors until the Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty (as per his edict of 732 CE) consolidated these into one day, chiefly as a way reducing the extravagance involved with staging so many memorial ceremonies. In modern China, the Qingming Festival has also marked a time when school children honor the heroes of the revolution by visiting the many martyr shrines. This year, 2008, marks its first appearance as a legal holiday (April 4th) in the People's Republic of China. This reflects China's on-going trend to reconnect with its traditional customs and values by encouraging the involvement of younger people who have been too busy working in the past to participate.

In literature, the Qingming Festival is a somber time for reflection on life and the importance of family ties, as reflected in Du Mu's (803-852 CE) famous poem on the festival often quoted by later generations:

"Qingming"

When Qingming comes, the rain drabs and drizzles;

People going along the road are sad and forlorn.

I ask where a wineshop can be found;

The herdboy distantly points to a village of apricot flowers.

Qingming is a time of cloudy skies and drizzling rain that often come in China's early spring, matching the feelings of those out on the road, presumably heading for gravesite family gatherings. Amidst this sadness, the poet seeks out a wineshop to drink away the somber mood, but when the boy points the way, he sees a village covered in blooming apricot flowers, a reminder of life's vitality reemerging in springtime.

I would also like to offer this lesser know poem by the Song poet Wang Yuqiao (ca. 11th cent. CE):

"Qingming"

Spending Qingming with neither wine nor flowers;

My spirits dampened, I felt like some rustic monk.

Yesterday a neighbor came begging for new fire;
At my glowing window,

I shared flame from my reading lamp.

Here the poet is spending a lonely and somber day during Qingming, bereft of anything that could lighten the mood; that is, until a neighbor shows up asking for light, and now he has some company. This poem refers to the ancient custom of the Cold Food Festival that occurs on the day before Qingming. As suggested by the name, all fire was extinguished that day and people had to eat their food cold; at the end of the day, fire would be ceremonially rekindled in the imperial palace so that the fires could be relit. Over time, the Cold Food Festival has faded from popular practice, but its origins are quite ancient, referring to a memorial for tragic loss that happened during the Spring and Autumn Period:

Duke Wen of Jin (r. 636-628 BCE) had suffered many years of exile before gaining the throne, and he rewarded his many loyal followers. But he committed a serious omission by failing to remember his servant Jie Zhitui, who had once cut a piece of flesh from his own leg and served it to the then starving and sick duke during their exile. Duke Wen tried to make up for this mistake later, but to no avail; Jie Zhitui had fled with his mother into a mountain so as to avoid having to greet the duke, who had come in person to apologize. As an act of desperation, the duke tried to flush Jie Zhitui and his mother out by setting fires on three sides of the mountain, fully expecting Jie Zhitui and his mother to seek their escape down the open fourth side. But Jie Zhitui was more stubborn than that, and he and his mother were burned to death in the conflagration. He had left the duke a note, admonishing the ruler to never become derelict or complacent as a ruler. In order to remember the sacrifice of this loyal servant, the duke decreed that all fire was to be extinguished the day before Qingming, and that people would have to eat their meals cold.

Other activities related to Qingming included nature hikes to enjoy the beauty of springtime (known poetically as "treading the greenery"), as well as planting trees, playing ball, and flying kites.

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