Qingming Festival – Tomb-Sweeping Day
The Qingming or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English,[1][2] is a traditional Chinese festival on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4 or 5 April in a given year.[3][4][5] Other common translations include Chinese Memorial Day and Ancestors’ Day.
Qingming has been regularly observed as a statutory public holiday in China. In Taiwan, the public holiday is now always observed on 5 April to honor the death of Chiang Kai-shek on that day in 1975. It became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008.
In the mainland, the holiday is associated with the consumption of qingtuan, green dumplings made of glutinous rice and barley grass. In Taiwan, the similar confection is known as caozaiguo or shuchuguo.
A similar holiday is observed in the Ryukyu Islands, called Shīmī in the local language.