I guess Double Ninth Festival was less popular than I expected. I have decided to choose another holiday called Qingming Festival.
The name may be misleading, but the Qingming is holiday and not a festival. It started many years ago to celebrate and honor the ancestors. This old holiday is an interesting one because it is steeped with Taoist and Confucian beliefs.
I have celebrated this holiday for as long as I remember, but I do not know much about it before my generation. Therefore, I asked my grandmother’s view on the holiday and its transformation from her time in China until now in New York.
I interviewed my grandmother and there are some key points that I want to clarify a bit before you watch.
In the Chinese religion, there is belief in an underworld, but it very different from what we know as hell. The underworld is just another place a dead person’s spirit goes. Think of it as immigration. The person is born into the light world and then migrates to the dark world. Therefore, ancestors are believed to be very close to the living and when the living burn spirit money (Hell bank notes), the dead are supposed to receive it.
There are “lucky” foods to eat. The names of some foods sound like words denoting something positive. Therefore, generations after generations, people eat the same food.
I did an interview with my grandma. She lived in the rural villages for a few years, but mostly grew up in the city of Guangzhou.
Qingming – Interview *I don’t know why one or two words got cut off*
I think that this holiday will have a lot more information to talk about than the previous proposal.
I would like to find more information on the Chinese government deciding to make Qingming a national holiday after many years of declaring the holiday too “traditional.”
I also have relatives who live in the rural countryside. When I say rural, I mean no-indoor-plumbing rural. I think it would be very interesting to see their take on the holiday. I wonder if they bring a live chicken there. But I am most interested if the holiday is only celebrated by males.
The holiday is usually celebrated on April 5th (Gregorian calendar). It already passed, but I have a huge stash of joss paper and spirit money at home. I can take pictures of those items so people can get an idea of what everything looks like.
I would like to explore why Qingming remains a popular holidays, whereas other ones, like Double Nine Festival seem to fade into obscurity.
What is the most appealing about this holiday? Does growing up in New York change anything about the view of the holiday? For my peers who are raised in NY, if they ever have children, would they choose to celebrate this holiday with their children?
In New York, there is a lot more liberty choose and it would be interesting to see what people choose and why.
