Pure Brightness Festival

Pure Brightness Festival is a traditional Chinese festival of sacrifice - a time for ancestor worship and tomb sweeping,commonly known as tomb visiting,which falls around April 5 in the Gregorian calendar each year.Both the Han and minority ethnic groups at this time offer sacrifices to their ancestors.Honoring the memory of the dead during Pure Brightness Festival has become an important custom inherited for a millennium in the Chinese nation.

On this day,people will visit the tombs of their deceased loved ones,pull up any weeds,add soil,place offerings,burn paper money and bow in worship.Urban residents will go to the cemeteries; if unable to go,they will draw a circle at an intersection and burn paper money with an address written on for the deceased loved ones.As a low-carbon lifestyle is being promoted nowadays,in order to avoid air pollution caused by burning paper,the habit is developing of opening a cyber mourning hall on the Internet to worship the deceased relatives and friends or mourn over the ancestors and martyrs.

A poem entitled Pure Brightness by Du Mu,a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty (618-907),says: “It drizzles thick and fast on Pure Brightness Day,I travel with my heart lost in dismay.When asked where could be found a tavern bower? A cowhand points at Apricot Village faraway,” which expresses the special atmosphere of the Pure Brightness Festival.

Pure Brightness Festival

The traditional Chinese Pure Brightness Festival can be dated back to the Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC-256 BC) and has a history of more than 2,500 years.Pure Brightness is one of the 24 lunar solar terms,as “Sui Shi Bai Wen” says: “Growing at this time things are bright and clean.So,it is called Pure Brightness.”

The custom of tomb sweeping and ancestor worship during this time is closely associated with the Cold Food Festival.This refers to the fact that cooking fires were banned so people could only eat cold or pre-cooked food.According to legend,this custom originated from the story about Duke Wen of Jin,one of the Five Hegemons in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-476 BC).To force his faithful follower Jie Zhitui from his hiding place deep in the mountains,he ordered his men to set the mountain on fire.To his consternation,Jie chose to remain where he was and was burnt to death together with his mother lying under a willow tree.The duke was very sad and regretful and buried them under the same willow.To commemorate Jie,the duke ordered all fires in every home to be put out on the anniversary of his death.Thus began Cold Food Festival.The next year,the duke and his servants in white clothes climbed the mountain to mourn Jie and found the old willow where Jie was buried had revived.The duke broke a willow branch,made it into a wreathe to wear on his head and later hanged it on the door for commemoration; this gradually evolved into today’s custom of placing willow during Pure Brightness Festival.

Since Pure Brightness Festival is very close in time to Cold Food Festival,people gradually integrated the customs of the two festivals,and in the Sui and Tang period (581-907),they gradually became a single festival,becoming the day for tomb sweeping and ancestor worship,that is,today’s Pure Brightness Festival.Therefore,Pure Brightness Festival has a clear duality in terms of festival culture - a combination of the sentiment of reverence for ancestors and the happy atmosphere of spring admiring; a combination of bitter partings in life or death and a fresh,bright and vivid scene.It gives attention to “death”,but more praises “life”.Until today,the custom of worshiping ancestors and paying tribute to the deceased loved ones during Pure Brightness Festival still prevail.In addition to tomb sweeping and ancestor worship,people also follow the custom of spring outings,willow inserting and wearing,kite flying and swinging during Pure Brightness Festival.Pure Brightness Festival is a time when the sun shines brightly,the trees and grass become green and nature is again lively,so it is high time for spring outings,to stretch muscles and bones and feel the vibrant nature.Pure Brightness Festival sees a combination of sadness of tomb sweeping and ancestor worship and happiness of spring outings.A Chinese ancient poem saying: “There are many graveyards in northern and southern hills; on Pure Brightness Festival the mourners come and sweep their graves.Burnt paper money flies as white as butterflies; the bloodlike tears are shed and dye azaleas red.At sunset foxes come back to lie there at night; at home the mourners would laugh by the candlelight; while he is alive,a man should in wine be drowned; when dead,could he drink a drop of wine underground?” fully demonstrated the Chinese people’s conception of life and death.Pure Brightness Festival is indeed a special festival.