Qingming Festival Ⅲ: the Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day

Qingming festival, also known as the Tomb Sweeping Day or ancestor day, which falls annually on April 5, is a day when Chinese around the world remember their dearly departed and take time off to clean up the tombs and place flowers and offerings. Chinese flock to cemeteries during Qingming Festival and honour their dead by offering prayers, food, tea, wine as well as paper replicas of bungalows, flashy cars, technological gadgets and Louis Vuitton bags, for their dead to enjoy in the afterlife.

A man reacts as he burns a paper villa as an offering in front of tombstones of his ancestors. – Photo by Reuters

Paper replicas of first generation iPads and iPhones sit on a shelf among other electronic gadgets for sale for the Qingming festival at a prayer supplies shop in Malaysia. – Photo by Reuters

Paper replicas of cars are for sale at a temple in Malaysia. – Photo by Reuters

A man blows on incense sticks, used for offerings to the deceased, at a cemetery in Hong Kong. – Photo by AFP