What does Tomb-Sweeping Day mean? How can I explain it to the children?
Qingming is a solar term representing phenology, which means sunny weather and lush vegetation. Tomb-Sweeping Day has folk customs such as climbing mountains, eating cold food and sweeping graves.
As the saying goes, "Qingming breaks snow, Grain Rain breaks frost." When the weather is clear, the climate in South China is warm and the spring is strong. However, before and after Tomb-Sweeping Day, cold air still invaded from time to time, even making the average daily temperature lower than 12℃ for more than three consecutive days, resulting in rotten seedlings of middle rice and dead seedlings of early rice. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid warm tail and cold head when sowing and transplanting rice. In the northwest plateau, livestock are weak under the influence of severe winter and insufficient forage, so it is necessary to guard against the harm of strong cooling weather after spring to old, weak and young livestock.
"There are many rains during the Qingming Festival" is a portrayal of the spring rain in the south of the Yangtze River by Du Mu, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty. But in some areas, this is not the case. Especially in the western part of South China, it is often in the spring drought period, and the rainfall in early April is generally only 10 to 20 mm, which is less than half of that in the south of the Yangtze River. Although there are many spring rains in eastern South China, the rainfall in early April is generally only 20 to 40 mm, so natural precipitation is not enough for agricultural production, so it must be replenished by storing water years ago.
In addition, May-June is the month with the most hail in a year, so the prevention of hail disaster should be strengthened.
Qingming is the fifth of the 24 solar terms and the beginning of the calendar. The time point is around the first day of the third lunar month (April 4-6 in Gregorian calendar), and the sun reaches longitude 15. "Twenty-four solar terms": "March Festival" ... At this time, everything is clean and clear. "
"When I Ask a Hundred Questions" says: "When everything grows, it is pure and bright, hence the name Qingming."
"Almanac": "On the fifteenth day after the vernal equinox, the bucket refers to Ding, which is used for Qingming, when everything is clean and bright, and when it is covered, everything is clean and bright, hence the name." Tomb-Sweeping Day, Chu, Yu and Jiu San are also called the four traditional festivals of ancestor worship in China.
Because Tomb-Sweeping Day is determined according to the solar terms, Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the few traditional festivals in China that roughly coincide with the western calendar. Tomb-Sweeping Day is the only holiday in Taiwan Province Province, Chinese mainland, Hongkong and other places according to the solar terms, and Macau has a winter solstice.