Many a Chinese
regards the Ch'ing Ming (literally, "pure and bright") festical, known
to Westerners as the "Feast of the Dead", the "Cult of Ancestral Worship",
or "All Souls' Day", as an important festival, which normally falls on
5th April of the solar year.
On this day,
or a week or two before and after, Chinese make a trip to the cemetaries
to pay homage to the ancestral tombs. At
the graveyard, the tomb of one's ancester is tidied up, and renovated if
need be.
From the Tang Dynasty onwards (AD 618-906),
mock money or incense-paper became the vogue for offering to the shades,
as is amply substantiated by textual evidence. A story relates to Wang
Po, the famous prodigy of Tang who started literary composition at the
age of six. When he was fourteen he attended a party given by Governor
Yen Kung, in which the prodigy excelled every guest in a literary competition.
on his homeward voyage, at the Ma Tang Hill, the prodigy again met the
old man who gave him a hint about the Governor's party, and, kneeling before
the old man, thanked him profusely. The old man told Wang Po that he owed
the Chang Lu Spirit $10,000 as a gambling debt, and urged the boy to repay
the debt when his boat passed the Spirit's temple. When the vessel reached
the temple, Wang Po forgot about his promise, and suddenly a flock of crows
formed a wall to prevent the craft from advancing. Then Wang Po remembered
about the old man and made mock money to be burnt at the temple.
The cock-fighting
season also occurs during the Ching Ming. A story relates again to the
famous Ming Huang, who was captivated by cock-fighting when he was a child.
Upon accession to the throne, Ming Huang created an imperial farm to rear
the finest species of the cockerels in the realm.
