Chinese People are Sweepping Tombs and Expressing Grief to Ancestors Today

Today is the traditional Qingming Festival in China, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day. The festival is a time to remember loved ones who have passed away or pay respects to ancestors, and to enjoy Spring and nature. 

Today people in most of areas in China all take a variety of ways to pay homage to the martyrs as well as mourning their ancestors and died friends.

From the capital Beijing, Taiwan province,  from the tomb of Emperor Huang in Shaanxi province, to the Sichuan earthquake disaster area, people from all parts taken in various ways to sacrifice their ancestors, martyrs and express their deep memories to them, and funeral parlors and memorial parks in everywhere now has cater a peak of the activities of tomb sweeping. 

Babaoshan Public Cemetery and Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing are two major cemeteries in the capital.

The municipal transportation department estimated that the pedestrian traffic in this section of the city reached a peak of about 3.5 million.

Gu Jing is an official from the local traffic police department.

"The 3,000 parking places were not enough according to the current situation, and we have had to open up all the backup parking lots. And our policemen will also focus on this area, helping to ease the traffic jams."

Many visitors brought flowers or cards to the graves of family members instead of lighting firecrackers and burning fake money, the two traditional ways of remembering the dead.



Wang Qi was one of the visitors at the Public Cemetery.

"Now the government has banned lighting firecrackers and burning fake money, so we decided to bring flowers to the graves of our deceased relatives. We can also express our love to them."

Similar events took place in localities nationwide, and the number of people visiting cemetaries and tombs is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.Saturday also marked the 25th tree planting day in Beijing. Environmentalists and volunteers in the capital city held various activities to promote environmental protection and a green, healthy lifestyle.

Beijing Environmental Volunteers Promote Idea of Green and Healthy Lifestyle

In the Olympic Park near the iconic "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, student volunteers from 30 colleges across China conducted surveys among passersby, testing them on their environmental knowledge. They also offered some environmental tips to onlookers, such as the basic skills of planting flowers.

Wang Leiming, a volunteer from Beijing Forestry University, said they aim to promote the idea of a green lifestyle through the activities.

"We have held three kinds of activities. One is arranging quizzes for citizens to get some environmental knowledge. The other is displaying indoor green plants topassersby. The third is showing environmentally-friendly gadgets made of waste discs, boxes and newspapers. Through this, we want to encourage the public to make use of waste materials in their daily life."




The activities aroused the interest of many onlookers who offered their support.
Ding Yanjuan was one of them.

"I think the activities are very good. Through doing the quizzes, I have obtained some knowledge, such as how to grow indoor plants. The activities are very useful."

In addition, volunteers from 50 colleges nationwide began a nationwide environmental tour from Beijing Forestry University. Participants in the campaign will promote awareness of environmental protection throughout their trip across China.

* Original address of this China gift post: Chinese People are Sweepping Tombs and Expressing Grief to Ancestors Today

World Expo and Chinese Culture – Snuff Bottle from Qing Dynasty

Snuff bottle has been an exotic goods, it was taken to China by Italian missionary during the Ming Dynasty. However, after face-lift via Chinese traditional art, later with the production and painting technologies become more and more sophisticated increasingly, snuff bottle become a symbol of identity and taste in the socitey. Both at the London Expo held in 1862 and Panama Expo held in 1915, Chinese snuff bottles won special medals.

Original snuff bottles from the Qing period are a desirable target for serious collectors and museums. A good bottle has an extra quality over and above its exquisite beauty and value: that is touch. Snuff bottles were made to be held and so, as a rule, they have a wonderful tactile quality.



Snuff bottles were made out of many different materials including porcelain, jade, ivory, wood, tortoiseshell, metal and ceramic, though probably the most commonly used material was glass.

The snuff bottle winning prizes at World Expo is an inside-painted snuff bottle. The so-called inside-painting, namely use a specific fine brush, painted exquisite picture inside the snuff bottle by hand.




The class of bottle that arouses most interest is that known as inside painted. These are glass bottles which have pictures and often calligraphy painted on the inside surface of the glass.These delightful scenes are only an inch or two high and are painted while manipulating the brush through the neck of the bottle.

There still has production of inside-painted snuff bottles today, as a pure artwork, snuff bottles had been wiped off its original practical value. While the workmanship of inside hand painting has passed on from generation to generation, and become an essence of traditional Chinese art.

* Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China

Women's Hair Ornaments and Their Social Connotations in Old China (up)

Hair ornaments such as hair pins, hair clasps and crowns were everyday embellishments of women in old China. During the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), women's hair ornaments expressed traditional Chinese thought and culture in exquisite, sophisticated techniques.


The patterns, craftsmanship, materials and number of hair ornaments a woman wore signified her social rank. Feudal etiquette defined the style of hair ornaments women wore on formal occasions, such as weddings or court ceremonies.

The generic term for hairpins and hair clasps is chignon(in Chinese pronunciation ji). A one bar chignon keeps coiled hair in place, and a two bar chignon is a feature of the hairstyle itself. Before the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) both Chinese men and women wore their hair in a coiled bun with a chignon to keep it in place.

The fashionable designs and diverse patterns of these ornaments made them a favorite ornament with women of all social strata.

Fashioned in materials that included jade, gold, silver, ivory, bronze and carved wood, the style, materials and craftsmanship of these hair ornaments reflected both social status and Chinese ethnic culture.

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* Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

On August 15 according to the lunar calendar every year is the traditional mid-autumn festival in China, and the The Mid-Autumn Festival and the Chinese New Year, the Ching Ming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival are known as the four big traditional festivals of Chinese Han nation. According to historical records, ancient emperors have ceremonies of worshipping the sun in spring and worshipping the moon in autumn, and the festival period of worshipping the moon is on August 15 according the lunar calendar,. which is just the time meet the mid time of the autumn, therefore it was called as “Mid-Autumn”, at the same time, owing to this festival is in August in Autumn, so it was also been called as “Autumn Festival”, "August Festival", "August Gathering," "Mid-Autumn Day";

At the same time, as there are faith of praying for reunion and related customs and activities, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also been called as “Union Day” and “Daughter’s Day”. And for the main activities in the Mid-Autumn Festival were carried on around the “Moon”, so it was been called as “Moon Day”, “Moon Eve”, “Moon Pursuing Festival” , “Moon Enjoying Day” and “Moon Worshipping Day”; In the Tang dynasty, the mid-autumn festival were also called as “Decorum Month”. With regard to the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival there are three types approximately: Origins from the worshipping of moon in ancient times, custom of dancing and looking for pal in the moonlight, religue of worshipping the gnome in autumn in ancient times.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival is coincides with the fruit harvest season, so fruits and melons were be used as sacrific food to the moon goodness that also were contained a few cultural connotations: Water melon symbolizes reunion, guava symbolizes grand-generativity, persimmon symbolizes auspicious, jujube symbolizes to have sons earlier, chestnut symbolizes offspring get married and start a career earlier and so on. At the same time, there are also taboos in the custom, such as sweet pears could not be used as sacrificed offerings to the moon goodness, for pear in Chinese pronunciation means separation, and implied disaster, which is oppose to the reunion meanings of the mid-autumn festival.

The climax of the Mid-Autumn Festival is on the night of August 15 according to the lunar calendar, the whole family gather together to have reunion dinners, which is called "round moon." If there are some relatives did not return home, their dinnerware should placed on the dinner table that to symbolize the family reunion. In the dinner cuisine, “August osmanthus duck”(a type of water boiled salted duck) is an essential dish, second is soybean cooked with young chicken, taro or ripe water chestnut cooked with braised pork in brown sauce.

From 2008, Mid-Autumn Festival is regulated as a National Holiday by the government, China attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, on May 20, 2006, the holiday was approved as the first batch of national grade intangible cultural heritage by the State Council.

Wish good persons all could have a peaceful life, wish you happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

* Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China