Saturday, the 5th of April marks China’s Tomb-Sweeping Festival. Get ready for burning piles of paper money and traffic mayhem that will persist over the entire coming week.
Traditionally, Qingming Festival is the time to visit one’s ancestors graves, in order to sweep them clean (hence the English name of Tomb-Sweeping Festival). By way of paying respect to their ancestors and remembering the dead, Chinese people will clear away weeds surrounding the tomb and add fresh soil to it. Nowadays, with the spread of cremation, it has become customary to present flowers instead. They will also bring gifts for the dearly departed in form of food and beverages. In addition, they will burn paper items, which their ancestors are said to to receive on the other side. A classic selection of popular paper items for the festival include paper money, cars and houses. The latest goods on the paper market reportedly include the Iphone 6, as the Iphone 5 is too out of fashion even for ones’ great-grandfather.
While the festival is a wonderful way for expats to witness this fascinating tradition of ancestral worship in local graveyards, it does come with the rather unpleasant side-effect of holiday travel mayhem. Once again, a large majority of China’s over 1.3 billion inhabitants will be on the move; be that to return to their home towns and their ancestors final resting place, or, in the cases of less traditionally minded Chinese, to go on a mini-break during the three-day public holiday.
The official Qingming Holiday will last from 5th April until 7th April. During this period, cars with seven seats or less will be exempt from paying toll fees throughout the entire country. While this is certainly a very generous move by the government, it will be a contributing factor to the expected traffic apocalypse.
Even though the holiday does not actually begin until coming Saturday, it is customary for many Chinese people to travel to their home towns in the week prior to the holiday; consequently traffic chaos in a sinilar fashion to Spring Festival and National Holiday is being predicted for the coming week.
This time of year means not only jammed highways but also the customary rush for train tickets. According to a statement made by Nanjing South Railway station, an estimated 647 000 passengers will travel through the highspeed railway station over the holiday, representing an increase of 18.6 percent compared to the previous year. The predicted peak time will be the first day of the holiday, Saturday the 5th April, when approximately 195 000 travellers are expected to make use of our local modern transport system. In order to deal with the increased traffic over the holiday, Nanjing South has even added over 30 additional passenger trains to their schedule servicing the areas of Shanghai, Northern Jiangsu and Anhui province.
While this measure will help to alleviate the pressure on the rail transportation system somewhat, there is still a disproportionate number of travellers in relation to available seats. This means, the epic battle for train tickets, which breaks out during any major Chinese holiday, is raging anew. The entire last week the Nanjing Railway Department has been issuing statements urging people who intend to travel during the national holiday to purchase their tickets as soon as they become available, which is typically two weeks prior to the travel date. Particularly popular routes such as connections to Shanghai, Xuzhou and neighbouring provinces sell out within a matter of days after ticket release, begging the question whether it is not easier to buy a winning lottery ticket than a public holiday train ticket.
Luckily for most expats, we do not have to go through the transport hassle unless we specifically decide to do so; and let’s be honest here, then you are just asking for it. For the rest of us, grab a camera and head to your local cemetery to observe one of the most fascinating traditions of our host country.
