Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, is the fifth solar term of a year, known as "Pure Brightness" in English. It is also the only solar term on Chinese lunar calendar that is also an important traditional festival.

As a day for both Tomb Sweeping and Spring Outing, it is a time when the admiration for life mixed with sorrow of death.

It usually falls around April 5, a time when the spring is in full bloom, and yet it is also one of the most important days to pay tribute to the deceased family members and relatives. But the two was separated at the very beginning, when the Hanshi Festival, or the “Cold Food Festival” was still being widely marked.

The combination of Qingming and Hanshi

At the very beginning, Qingming was only a name for one of the 24 solar terms, just like the others. It is not until its combination with the “Hanshi Festival” when it became a famous festive occasion.

The Hanshi Festival was designated to pay tribute to a loyal statesman during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.) who died in a fire. The Chinese people did not cook on the day of the Hanshi Festival and ate only cold food. The Tomb-Sweeping rituals were also derived from it.

Since the festival has only one day’s interval from the Qingming, the two events were gradually mixed. As of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Hanshi Festival was slowly replaced by Qingming Festival, despite a few areas where the two are still marked separately.