Qing Ming Jie

Qingming
Burning paper gifts for the departed.
Official name	Qingming Jie (清明节) Tomb Sweeping Day (扫坟节) Ching Ming Festival (清明節)
Observed by	Han Chinese
Significance	Remembering ancestors
Observances	Cleaning and sweeping of graves, ancestor worship, offering food to deceased, burning joss paper
Date	15th day from the Spring Equinox 4, 5 or 6 April
2018 date	5 April
2019 date	5 April
2020 date	4 April

The Qingming or Ching Ming festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English (sometimes also called Chinese Memorial Day or Ancestors' Day), is a traditional Chinese festival. It falls 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. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites, pray to their ancestors, and make ritual offerings. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes, and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper.

The Qingming Festival has been observed by the Chinese for over 2500 years. It became a public holiday in mainland China in 2008. In Taiwan, the public holiday was in the past always observed on 5 April to honor the death of Chiang Kai-shek on that day in 1975, but with Chiang's party currently out of power, this convention is not being observed. A similar holiday is observed in the Ryukyu Islands, called Shīmī in the local language.

In mainland China, the holiday is associated with the consumption of qingtuan, green dumplings made of glutinous rice and Chinese mugwort or barley grass. A similar confection called caozaiguo or shuchuguo, made with Jersey cudweed, is consumed in Taiwan.