Qingming Festival - Returning to the roots

Wednesday, April 3, 2024 | 22:47:32

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With the moral of “When drinking water, remember its source”, since ancient times, Thanh Minh festival has been an important and sacred holiday in the ancestor worship of Vietnamese people. This is an occasion for families and clans to organize grave cleaning, repair the family and clan graves to be neat and clean, gather together to remember grandparents, ancestors, and turn to their roots.

Qingming Festival is associated with the tomb-sweeping ritual of families and clans.

After many years of researching and teaching folk literature, poet Nguyen Anh Tuyet, member of the Vietnam Writers Association, former Permanent Vice President of the Thai Binh Literature and Arts Association, shared: In "Truyen Kieu", Nguyen Du wrote: "Thanh minh in the third lunar month / The ceremony is to visit graves, the festival is to go out in the fresh air". Thanh minh festival has a strong cultural identity of the Vietnamese people. This is the first day of Thanh minh festival - 1 of the 24 solar terms of the year. Literally, thanh means clear air, minh means bright. Thanh minh festival is when the sky has become clear after the spring drizzle. In the past, most graves were only covered with soil and had steles erected, so every year on this occasion, descendants organize to clear the grass and add more to the grave to make it more dignified against the erosion of time and weather. Nowadays, although the graves have been built with many types of solid materials, the old customs are still preserved so that the resting place of relatives in the family and clan is cozy.

According to traditional customs, on this occasion, people far from home, despite being busy with their daily lives, try to arrange time to return to visit the graves of their deceased relatives. While many families and clans set the ceremony on the main day as a tradition so that members do not have to confirm the time each time, there are also families who flexibly organize it on the nearest weekend so that their descendants can gather together. After visiting their ancestors' graves, families perform the ceremony at home, place the offerings on the altar, then gather to eat, chat, and strengthen family ties.

Because this year's Qingming Festival falls in the middle of the week, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa, from Tay Ninh Commune (Tien Hai), took advantage of the weekend to bring her two children, who are currently living and studying in Hanoi, to burn incense for their ancestors at the commune cemetery. While guiding her children to weed and arrange offerings, Ms. Hoa said: Every year, my family takes our children to the family's graves to burn incense for our grandparents, ancestors, and the surrounding graves. Not only my family, but all families in the clan preserve this tradition as a link so that today's generation always remembers and respects their ancestors, follows their fathers' traditions, and increases their determination to study, work well, and become useful citizens for society.

As for Mr. Pham Thanh Ngoc (Ho Chi Minh City), after many years of living and working away from home, this Thanh Minh festival he brought his parents back to offer incense to their grandparents and ancestors at the cemetery of Kien Xuong town. For him, this is also an opportunity to meet all relatives. He shared: Our family has a tradition of Thanh Minh festival, when descendants in the family gather back to their hometown to visit graves and gather at the ancestral temple. At the altar of food and blessings, everyone puts aside their daily worries to spend time chatting and sharing stories about life. Therefore, this is also an opportunity to strengthen the bond between families in a large family, the clan.

Mr. Dang Dinh Dung, head of the Dang clan in An De village, Hiep Hoa commune (Vu Thu), said: The pride of the clan is that every year on the occasion of Thanh Minh, descendants from the South to the North gather to burn incense at the graves and reunite at the clan's ancestral temple. This is an activity with profound humanistic meaning, connecting the descendants of the Dang clan together to look back to their roots.

Whatever its meaning, Qingming Festival is a day of love, a day of gratitude and one of the long-standing traditional cultural activities. The rituals may be simplified to better suit the modern lifestyle, but it is always a time for people to meet, gather, and remind each other of the good traditions of the nation for thousands of years.