Qing Ming: Honoring Ancestors, Traditions, and Modern Approaches

Hey guys, welcome to the learn Feng Shui podcast where you'll learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taking out the myth and superstition. So if you're interested in learning Feng Shui, Chinese astrology, all things Chinese and metaphysics as well as the superstitions and myths that connect it all, you'll enjoy learning fune with me. Hey guys, welcome to the learn Feng Shui podcast where ancient traditions meets modern living. I'm Candice Berlanga, certified Feng Shui practitioner and a red ribbon professional with the international Feng Shui guild. Today we're talking about chingming or tumi sweeping festival.

We're exploring five simple and meaningful ways to incorporate ancestor remembrance into your life. Plus, we'll be discussing some of the common taboos associated with chingming and tumi sweeping festival and what they mean. So whether you actively celebrate or just want to feel more connected to those who came before you, I think this episode will have something for you. Let's get into it. April 4th marks the solar term Ching Ming, meaning clear and bright.

This signals the arrival of a festival that bears its name. As nature awakens, families honor their ancestors through something called tomb sweeping, offerings, and reflection. But even if you don't observe this ching ming or tomb sleeping in a traditional way, there's still meaningful ways to connect with your lineage and your ancestors, which I believe is very important. So, let's explore five ways to honor your ancestors in daily life. That brings me to my first point, honoring your customs and cultural traditions.

If you have a specific ancestral tradition, it's best to practice those to keep that lineage alive. teaching your children and practicing with your relatives can bring that sense of connection. So whether it's maybe celebrating festivals like ching bing, maybe you cook a traditional family recipe, maybe one that's been passed down, or you use the rituals that are inherited through your culture or custom, these can create a living connection to your ancestors. So if there's something you guys do, then continue to do that to connect to your ancestors. Uh number two, create a dedicated space.

So just a simple altar, a frame photo, or even a shelf with meaningful objects can serve as a focal point for remembrance. It doesn't have to necessarily be an altar, although there is altra placement. And the ancestor plaque on traditional Buddhist altars are very, very important. This also doesn't have to be religious. It could just be a personal way to acknowledge your roots.

I know I have a little board with um some family members that I want to remember and I just have it sitting in my office so I can look at that. You know, my mom has a crafter or sewing room and she has a lot of the little papers that you get from the funeral, little service programs. She has a few of those hanging up especially to the relatives that were close to her, my uncle, my grandma and my aunt. you can see just kind of on a daily basis, which I think is a nice way to remember a person. Also, it doesn't have to just be this time of year.

Three, practicing a daily act of remembrance. So, speaking your ancestors names, telling a story about them, or even dedicating some kind of personal achievement to them can be a very meaningful way to keep their memory alive in a modern context. My next point, engage in a service or philanthropy. So, honor your ancestors by giving back in ways that align with their values. Maybe volunteering, donating, or maybe even helping other people in a way that would have appreciated it is a great way also to pay tribute.

Maybe make a donation in their honor to the humane society or something like that if they loved animals or if they had a cause that they were very passionate about. Um, I know a few years ago I was really looking for something to dedicate my time to. I was just kind of in a low place. I just thought if I could get outside of myself that I would feel better. and I decided to play flag football for a team that raised money for Alzheimer's research.

And the money actually stayed local and it went to what is called the brain bank here in town that is dedicated to Alzheimer's research and I dedicated that to my uncle Jim who had Alzheimer's. Number five, connect through nature or symbolic act. So many traditions use elements like water, fire, earth to represent some kind of continuity and respect. So maybe planting a tree, lighting a candle, making an offering, maybe incense, something like that. It can be a universal way to show reverence.

So again, it just depends on what you do with your custom and your tradition. I did not grow up in a household that necessarily did any of that. My mom and dad were just plain old Christian folk and so they I don't think really believed in any of that. my older years though, I think I feel like honoring your ancestors is just a way to continue to connect with that bloodline you come from. So that's just kind of my view on it.

And so these are really easy ones to do if you don't necessarily have a strong cultural background. All right, let's learn all about Tomb Sweeping Festival. Now, I want to start out by talking about the taboss that are associated with Tomb Sweeping Festival here. And I'm going to put all my links in the show notes. This is from English.govcn, the state council, the people's republic of China.

In Beijing, Chingming festival is known as the English as tomb sweeping day. It's a time when Chinese pay tribute to deceased family members and ancestors. As government officials and party cadres are about to join their fellow tomb sweepers, they have been told to shun certain inappropriate behaviors. The day before the festival, a list of dos and don'ts is shared on Chinese social media after being published by the official magazine of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China. Number one, don't drive a public car to your family tomb.

So using public vehicles for personal use was a prominent issue. CPC National Congress authorities have been cracking down on the misuse of public vehicles. The article warned that cadre's found to violate this rule will be made to pay all the cost incurred and violators will also be punished. Don't hire Feng Shui masters or medians during this time. No playing with ghosts.

In cultures, death is commonly linked to superstition. Cadres have been warned to maintain a distance from the practices because as communists, they are supposed to be true believers of materialism and superstition has no part in this. There are cadres who have blatantly engaged in superstitious act on tube sweeping day and they hired Feng Shui masters and medians to contact ghosts casting a very bad influence. The article said superstitious practices seriously violate party rules and code of conduct and serious offenders will be expelled from the party. And I don't even know what that means, but that sounds harsh.

Okay. Uh, don't make a scene. While it's custom to burn paper money and other offerings at the tombs, disciplinary watchdog caution cadre not to overdo it. The article said that the practice has created a great deal of white waste every tomb sweeping day. Some tomb sweepers hired bands to spice the occasion while others used low taste offerings.

Failing to oppose these practices is bad enough, but when cadres even joined in and made a scene to show off, the article said the acts have tarnished the party's image and cause public discontent. Extorting money under the cover of funerals, damaging public or collective assets, and using public funds to accommodate visiting officials. Offenders will be punished. The article said that cadre should lead the morning in a frugal, environmentally friendly, modern, and civic-minded ways. It is said, after all, that sincerity is all that counts.

Sincere mourers, even through practicing frugality, will be awarded with peace of mind and a clear environment. But the article does not address a new and somewhat bit controversial phenomena, virtual tomb sweeping. So, I thought this was interesting. Since 2008, the Chinese have a day off of work for tomb sweeping, which usually becomes 3 days when linked to a weekend. But some people squeezed by work or living far away choose not to travel back to their hometown.

But now, internet firms have allowed them to pay tribute by virtually sweeping the tombs just by tapping on their smartphones. manager of a cemetery in the southwest Sichuan province said that the cemetery has continued to try new things. Replacing paper money with flowers and fruits, planting trees, reciting poems, writing calligraphy. These environmentally friendly sweeping practices have been encouraged by the government. However, the general public are not very supportive of the online mourning as mourners are not actually there themselves.

Online morning is the latest effort to try something new, says the cemetery manager. It follows a trend making tomb sweeping a spiritual experience, but we mourn together even though we're physically apart, so why not? And I thought that was interesting, even maybe virtually visiting your family plots or something like that maybe is the way to go if you can't be there physically. And for goodfun.com, um I'm not going to read the whole article because it just kind of goes into some fallacies about Ching Ming festival and some of the misconceptions associated with it. It basically just emphasizes the importance of the annual event which is traditionally observed around April 4th or 5th.

The time for Chinese to honor their ancestors by cleaning grave sites, making offerings, and strengthening their bonds, which really is the goal here. Uh, one prevalent fallacy addressed is just the belief that the married daughters should not return to their parental homes to participate in ancestral rights duringQing Ching Ming due to concerns about diminishing family wealth or good fortune. Um, but the article refutes this and says that a married daughter shares the same line lineage and has every right to pay respects to her ancestors and that her participation actually embodies what is called file piety and sets a positive example for future generations. I had to look up what file piety was. So it's basically a fundamental virtue in Chinese culture and many other East Asian traditions.

And it refers to like this deep respect and devotion to your parents and elders and ancestors. And the concept just really emphasizes honoring one's family through obedience, care, and maintaining these ancestral traditions and participating in them, including Cheng Ming. So I think it was really believed that the since the daughter was married and the son carried on the lineage and the family name that the daughter would not participate because it would diminish the wealth of the family. And I think that just kind of goes back to the um kind of you know just a more male- centered society in different countries. Tell every country I think am I wrong?

The next thing the article highlights like it's it's pretty lengthy, but really these are the two main concepts. One of the issues that's often overlooked with Ching Ming or with a grave site is water accumulation at the grave site. Neglecting pulled water can adversely affect the health and prosperity of your descendants. We know that good Feng Shui ends at the grave, right? And that neglecting the tombs can cause issues.

It said with the descendants neglecting water that can pull because of the way the tombs are shaped. They're kind of shaped in a horseshoe kind of shape with the support which is supposed to be for creature embrace. It kind of looks like a round armchair. Therefore, the water will tend to pull up sometimes and that is said that you're just supposed to inspect the grave site and make sure there's proper drainage because even after the person's passed away and passed on, you still want to have a positive fune for burial. I found a really interesting article which uh I'm going to have to revisit a little bit more when I talk about of yin Feng Shui or Feng Shui for burial.

One thing that it talks about here it says that during the time of the earliest ancestor worship there were no tombs. Ancestor worship was always connected to a home altar and ancestral temple. I don't really know a lot about ancestor tablets. It says here that the ancestral tablet means a return to the first ancestor who is God. It signifies the dead has returned to be with God.

A few key traditions that are observed during Ching Ming obviously is tomb sweeping where families visit ancestral graves to clean the tombs, make offerings and pay their respects and reinforce these family bonds and that fully piety I was talking about. Spring outings, people will take advantage of the pleasant spring weather to enjoy outdoor activities, appreciating spring's return and things turning green again. Just that kind of rejuvenation of nature. Flying kites. Flying kites was actually popularized during Ching Ming, where individuals fly kites in various shapes, symbolizing the release of bad luck and welcoming good fortune.

Consuming green rice balls that are made from glutenous rice mixed with the juice of warm wood leaves represents the flavors and colors of spring. So just engaging in these practices, Ching festival serves as time for reflection, remembrance, and a celebration of life and renewal. I just want to share a quick little story. My mom's from a little town about an hour and a half west of where we live at right now. And a lot of my family still lives there.

Two years ago, we my mom told me she was going to go to our family cemetery and lay flowers and clean the graves up and stuff like that. But it happened to fall on Ching Ming. It was April 5th that year. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go with her.

me and uh two of my kids took off and went up there with her and we actually had a really nice day. My aunt went and met us at the cemetery and uh we had a lovely time. We went and ate lunch and just really spent some time together and I really cherished that memory because last year she ended up passing away in May. It was rather unexpected. She uh developed cancer, didn't go in for treatment and by the time she went in for treatment, it was just too late.

In honor of Ching Ming, I'd like to dedicate this episode to my aunt Angie, who I miss dearly. All right, guys. I don't really want to end on a sad note. So, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Just find some ways to honor, you know, maybe your loved ones that you miss.

And uh hope you found some interesting information there. just talking about ways to honor your loved ones if you're not very religious or if you don't have those strong cultural ties and of course just learning a little bit about Ching Ming and what that entails. Next week I think I might try to do an episode about door tilting in Feng Shui. What's door tilting? Well, guess you'll find out next week.

All right, I'll catch you guys then. For a free energy mapping of your floor plan, please check the link in the show notes. To support today's podcast, go to learnf Feng Shui.com, sign up for emails, leave a review, and share with your family and friends.