To the Chinese, Ching Ming is a very important annual festival to commemorate the dead.

Why is Ching Ming Festival so important to the Chinese?

The Chinese view the relationship between the living and the dead as a important aspect of their family life. The relationships with the dead does not end merely by getting a proper burial site, it is the continual maintanance of the needs of the ancestors that will close the loop. With the continued care of the dead primarily out of filial peity, it is also hope that in return the spirit of the ancestors can bestow good fortune on the living.

What is this Ching Ming Festival?

Ching Ming means “ clear and bright”. This is a time associate with the resurgence of life in spring and it is traditional for women and children to wear willow catkin to protect themselves at a future time from being reborn as dogs during the transmigration of souls.

This festival normally falls in the spring usually on the 5^th or 6 th April during the end of the second, or beginning of the third months of the lunar calendar.

During this event, the focus is get all the members of the family to:

• a visit to the ancestral tombs.

• sweep away the debris/undergrowth that has gathered on and around the grave during the previous year and repaint the inscriptions to the dead.

• Incense sticks and red candles are lit before the inscription and photo of the deceased on the headstone

• Rice, wine, tea, chicken, fruit and other well meaningful food are served. Bean curd and fish head and tails are one of the many food being served. Fish implies profit and the heads and tails give the offering a sense of wholeness. The word “fu” from bean curd (tao fu) sounds similar to the word “wu” meaning protect. .

• Paper clothes and “spirit” or “ hell” money are normally burnt so that the dead are provided with fresh supplies for the afterlife. In this modern era, many more paper made objects like beautiful cars, bungalow houses, boats, are now burnt for the luxurious needs of the dead.

Ching Ming Festival & Ancestral Hall.

Ching Ming festival is also the day to visit the ancestral hall The ancestral hall is a building that contains tablets listing the names of the clan’s founding ancestors and other deceased members of the family. Many families will also have a smaller ancestral shrine in their home and similar offerings are made and prayers said before these shrines at Ching Ming.

For those bigger ancestral hall:

• the founding ancestor’s tablet is put in a position of prominence on the main altar
• those who were distinguished in life, produced large families or were wealthy have positions of prominence on smaller altars to the left and right.
• The tablets belong to the most prestigious member of the family are not removed but the tablets of those were not so highly regarded are shifted to the back of the hall to make room for tablets belonging to the newly deceased.

The well-being of the dead, the living and those yet to be born is lined through the existence of these ancestral halls. In as much as the family revolved around the founder of their clan during his lifetime so it is after his death. In the past, these ancestral halls are not only places of remembrance, but also act as places of worship, community centres and council chambers.

The rituals that are performed here are performed on behalf of the whole clan. Through the offerings and ritual the dead souls maintain their vitality, the living will be guided and protected by their ancestors and those who have yet to be born will have the blessings of their deceased relatives when their names are inscribed in the register of births kept in the ancestral hall.