The Qingming Festival, also known as the Treading Green Festival, is celebrated at the intersection of mid-spring and late spring, the 108th day after the winter solstice, and is one of China's traditional festivals and one of the most important sacrificial festivals, a day of ancestor worship and tomb-sweeping.
The traditional Qingming Festival of the Han Chinese people began around the Zhou Dynasty, more than 2,500 years ago. Influenced by Han culture, 24 ethnic minorities in China, including Manchu, Hezhen, Zhuang, Oroqen, Dong, Tujia, Miao, Yao, Li, Shui, Jing and Qiang, also have the custom of celebrating Qingming Festival. Although customs vary from place to place, tomb-sweeping and ancestor worship, and trekking and picnicking are the basic themes.
The name of the Qingming Festival is related to the characteristics of weather and weather conditions at this time. The Western Han Dynasty "Huainanzi - astronomy training" said: "15 days after the spring equinox, the bucket refers to B, then the Qingming wind to." "Qingming wind" means fresh and clean wind. The "Hundred Questions on the Time of the Year" says, "Everything grows at this time, all clean and clear. Therefore, it is called Qingming." Although the festival of Qingming was only formed in the Tang Dynasty, the Qingming Festival as a sign of the time has long been recognized by the ancients, the Han Dynasty has been clearly recorded.
The twenty-four solar terms are the climatic patterns summarized by ancient Chinese astronomers and people in their lives and production practices, reflecting more appropriately the changes in temperature, physical conditions, rainfall and other aspects of the year, and providing indispensable guidance for people to arrange farming, sericulture, and other activities according to the time of the year. To the Qingming, warming temperatures, rainfall increased, is the spring plowing and planting of a good time. So Qingming is an important festival for ancient agricultural production. Agricultural proverbs say, "Before and after Qingming, planting melons and beans" and "Planting trees and forests is not more important than Qingming", which is exactly what they say. Cui Shi (崔寔) of the Eastern Han Dynasty recorded in "Four People's Monthly Orders": "At the Qingming Festival, we order silkworm concubines to rule the silkworm room ------", which means that we start to prepare for raising silkworms at this time. The "Qingming Festival" is still a festival, not a holiday.
The Qingming Festival in the time and weather characteristics for the formation of the Qingming Festival provides important conditions, the festival is seen as one of the sources of the Qingming Festival.