Honouring the dead: Ching Ming Festival begins in Hong Kong
China’s ancient Ching Ming Festival begins on the fourth day of April; South China Morning Post photographer Sam Tsang documents its beginnings at one of Hong Kong’s hillside columbariums
For Chinese people, it’s the festival of Ching Ming (Qing Ming in mainland China): for English-speaking folk it’s Tomb Sweeping Day, Chinese Memorial Day or Ancestor’s Day. Its roots go back to 732 AD, when the Emperor Xuanzong declared the wealthy citizens of China were spending too much on lavish ceremonies to honour their ancestors and decreed that such practices should only be held on one day of the year.
Ching Ming’s more ancient roots declare it as one of the 24 dates that divide the solar year on the Chinese calendar, and heralds the turning of seasons and the beginning of plowing and sowing as the weather gets warmer - kite flying, family outings and special feasts all feature as part of the annual Ching Ming Festival, but the most sombre feature is of venerating the dead, maintaining their graves and making offerings to ancestors.
In Hong Kong, at the 8 level Diamond Valley Cemetery in Kowloon, people visit the graves of their ancestors to pray, sweep and clean the tombs, and make offerings of food, and wine as well as burning paper offerings to the dead, including paper money, clothes and houses.