I always look forward to the surprises that a festival and national hIoliday in China brings. This particular week the highlight was always going to be the celebration of Qingming, also known as Tomb sweeping day. It is a celebration of spring which falls on the first day of the fifth solar term, unsurprisingly called Qingming. This is the 15th day after the spring equinox. At this time Chinese culture dictates that families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to their ancestors. And thus I began the week with high expectations for Friday and the weekend when the holiday was to occur..

Tuesday was workshop day at Cozmikk studios and I had signed up for another class. Finding a local Baiziwan where I could relax and focus on the class was now a priority. This week my ex colleague from Universal, Stuart was joining me and I met him beforehand at Dajiaoting station and we made our way to a cafe next door to Double Uncle called Gaowujian. The scene I’d had to learn called upon me to give character depth through discovering the subtext. which proved harder than it sounds, and as I spent what is meant to be study time. Chatting with Stuart, I cannot say I was very happy with the results. The class however, was enhanced by having not only Stuart there but also another friend Rachel who also turned up. Subway ride, new cafe, a walk through Baiziwan and some acting. What more could I ask for in a day.

I had been obsessing for a couple of years about my visit in 2020 to the Yuan Dadu Relic Wall park when I had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the trees in blossom. It was now 2025 and I was determined to experience the park in full bloom again., Wednesday seemed the perfect sunny day to go and view the glories of spring and relive my memory. We travelled to the Mudanyuan Station, conveniently situated on line 19 and cycled 5k along the park to lunch at Bestease Vegan noodle restaurant. We planned our walk back to the station along the north moat to see the blossom. Absolutely radiant blue skies set off the pinks and whites and purples of the trees. The crowds also out enjoy and capture the vibrant colours and the heady scents of the park in Spring were immense, and initially off-putting but the atmosphere was truly wonderful. Bands were playing serene music, people were posing and taking photos and the sense of joy at the arrival of spring was quite overwhelming. We walked back to the station and stopped for tea at a cafe before going home.

We changed the pace on Wednesday and went for lunch with Peng’s Parents in Fengtai. They had prepared Mala Xiang Guo which is one of my favourites. and loosely translates as “spicy stir fry hot pot”. As with Hot pot the customers in restaurants usually customise the ingredients (meat and vegetables) by ourselves before the chef prepares the dish. As this was home made its was left to them to provide and they were by now very familiar with my likes and dislikes. The name of the dish is self-descriptive, with “ma” meaning tongue-numbing and “la” meaning spiciness. The “spicy and tingling” sensation is a distinctive flavour feature of Sichuan pepper and cuisine,. Thankfully it was ‘small la’ and not over spicy but it was definitely tasty. After lunch, in preparation for a trip at the weekend to Baoding ,we filled the car with petrol and had a car wash. There were no parking spaces near by and we had to park by Changchungyuan park and I caught the end of a choirs performance. 

On Friday it was actually Tomb Sweeping Festival. The origins of the Festival go back more than 2500 years, although its practices have changed significantly,  The source is a compelling story linked to the Cold Food or Hanshi Festival which supposedly commemorates a nobleman, Jie Zitui of the Spring and Autumn period. Legend tells us that he followed his master Prince Chong’er in 655 BC to exile around China. Supposedly, he cut flesh from his thigh to provide his lord with soup. When Chong’er invaded Jin and was instated as its duke, he reward those who had helped him. Somehow the devoted Jie was ignored and he retreated to the forest with his elderly mother. The duke went in search of Jim but unable to find them ordered his men to set fire to the forest smoke them out. Instead, Jie and his mother were burned. This ‘mishap’ inspired the Duke to forbid the lighting of a fire on the date of Jie’s death. The people of Shanxi (Jin) subsequently revered Jie as an immortal and avoided lighting fires for as long as a month in the depths of winter. This practice was so harmful to children and the elderly that there were attempts to ban it for centuries. Eventually it was restricted by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang to 3 days around the Qingming solar term in mid-spring. as he believed the wealthy citizens were holding too many extravagant, ostentatious and expensive ceremonies in honour of their ancestors and curb their excesses he declared that respects could be formally paid only once a year, on Qingming. For centuries the Chinese have gathered together on this day to remember the lives of the departed, to visit their tombstones to perform Confucian filial piety by tomb sweeping and to perform maintenance and to pray for their ancestors and to offer remembrances of their ancestors to living blood relatives. Sweeping the tomb is only allowed during this festival as its believed the dead will get disturbed if the sweeping is done on other days.

To mark the festival I paid a visit to the cemetery of revolutionary heroes at Babaoshan . It was amazing and touching to see how many of the graves were attended to. And I spent quite some time studying the photos and memorials. In the spirit of the day I wanted to honour my own family ancestors and I found a grave without flowers. Close by the grave I saw people selling flowers and went to buy one but it turned out to be free! I put a flower on the heroes grave said a small prayer for the dead and felt I had done my duty to the Quirkes, Thomsons, Watsons and all friends who have gone before.

The National Holiday for Tomb sweeping Festival took us and Peng’s cousin jieyu and his wife Chi to Baoding in Hebei. Appropriately, on the way we stopped at the western Qing Tombs, a necropolis of four royal mausoleums where emperors of the Qing dynasty and their empresses, concubines, princes and princesses, as well as other royal servants are laid to rest amongst the majestic, ostentatious imperial tombs. The layout and architecture as well as the location in the foothills of a mountain range was stunning and the histories revealed were electrifying. I wondered that these mesmerising tales of extravagance, treachery, betrayals, poisonings, grave robbing, have not spawned countless films. We discovered too that Pu Yi, the last Emperor, the man who betrayed China and acted as Japans puppet ruler despite becoming a convert to communism, has his own burial grounds there. We tried to visit but it was guarded and not open to the public. We visited 5 locations in area, the 4 tombs, including that of the Emperor Guangxu whose story is so compelling, from ascending to the to the title as a 4 year old to his eventual poisoning by the Dowager Empress Cixi. Once we had exhausted the history we drove to Baoding and the hotel. We dined at Baoding Yanyishi Museum a complex of restaurants. Our dining hall was immense and when we arrived only a handful of people were dining. by the time we left it was practically full. I mention this as while I watched the others eat my vegetarian food never arrived. Fed up by waiting and not relishing the thought of our party having to watch me eat we departed for the night market. This was a good move as there were street vendors and I could eat their delicious gluten kebabs and biscuits.

Day two of our Baoding trip began with me having breakfast on my own in the hotel while the rest of the party ate donkey meat burgers somewhere else. There was plenty of vegetarian fare available for me. We passed by and visited Baoding Catholic Church, which was my first visit inside a Chinese church. The main focus though was the historic Viceroy of Zhili Governor-General’s office. A role that was created in September 1649 during the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor and lasted until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. In the Qing dynasty China had eight regional Viceroys who over saw the military and civil affairs of their respective Province. The History and buildings were fascinating but due to the fact it was a public holiday the museum was over overcrowded and I did not have a very enjoyable time. Our final visit of the day was the beautiful, ancient Lotus pool in the grounds of Lianchi college. Traffic back to Beijing was bad, very bad and we changed route several times finally finding a rural road that no one was on as a short cut from the highways.

As anticipated, my high expectations for the weekend Qingming celebrations had been surpassed and proved to be another educational, colourful and exciting trip that gave me more insights into the history and culture of this endlessly fascinating country

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