The Qingming Festival, or Ching Ming Festival, also known as the Festival of Pure Brightness and Tomb Sweeping Day, involves families visiting and cleaning the graves of ancestors, making offerings of food, burning joss paper, and paying respects to the deceased. This festival emphasizes filial piety and the importance of honoring one’s ancestors, often accompanied by family gatherings and enjoying the start of spring weather.
The festival is observed in many countries and by many ethnicities alike: from ethnic Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau to Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. The festival falls on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, though in many communities a flexible start of around 10 days before or after this date is observed, to accomodate planning challenges and avoiding large crowds at cemeteries. This is a very old festival, dating back to perhaps even prehistoric times, but only became an official public holiday in mainland China in 2008.
Here in Ontario, Canada, our family tends to use the Good Friday weekend for this festival as it allows family cells from multiple cities to gather in one location and celebrate the festival at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. This large cemetery holds about 85,000 individuals, from prime ministers to military personnel and everyone in between. It reflects Canada’s multicultural identity, with large sections dedicated to various religious and ethnic communities. It is not only a burial site but also a place for reflection and remembrance, with beautiful landscapes and historical monuments and artifacts.
These photographs were taken during my first experience attending this festival. Participation was not yet in the cards for me. The ritual before the grave is performed in the order of patriarchal seniority within the family and as a freshly minted boyfriend at the time I did not have a place in that pecking order just yet, but now I do and participate fully.
Over time, I found it quite fascinating observing how every generation participates, and when often times none need encouragement to start preparations for and carry out rituals of this practise. This is not something I was accustomed to, not as far as cemetery customs are concerned, at least not where I’m from. Something that truly didn’t require much getting used to though is the feast afterwards, as the food and drink brought to the ritual (and ‘some’ extra), is available to the entire clan to dive into and enjoy afterwards.
I am unsure of the camera I brought to this event, back in 2014, but the film was easy enough to identify. Kodak Portra and early spring blossoms are a match made in heaven, it seems. The cemetery is a destination by itself, if not for the sheer amount of history literally buried there, as well as the artifacts positioned in various areas. It gives the visitor a generous glimpse into the -sometimes violent- history of this young country.
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