Festive China: Qingming
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BUZZ NOTE: This article is primarily a VIDEO explaining the festival which is accessed by clicking on the SEEDED CONTENT link just below this message, which will open the source article. Use your speakers or headphones as the captions are difficult to read.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Festive China: Qingming
Qingming is not only one of China's 24 solar terms , but also an occasion for Chinese people to honor lost family members.
The solar term Qingming is observed in early April when the temperature begins to rise and rainfall increases. It is also the right time for spring cultivation and sowing. At the same time, Chinese people will visit tombs of their ancestors around Qingming to pay respect to the deceased. Most families will go to cemeteries with offerings, clean up weeds around the tombs and pray for family prosperity.
Watch this episode of Festive China to find out more.
Festive China is a series of short clips focusing on traditional Chinese festivals and festivities, the cultural connotations of traditional holidays, their development and changes, and how they manifest in today's China.
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Today is the third and last day of the QingMing Festival holiday, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day. My wife's younger brother drove my wife to the village in rural Chongqing to meet their older brother who carries on the family farm where my wife grew up, and where their parents are buried. It is about a 4 hour drive away, and I had no reason to be there so I was happy to stay home for the couple of days before they returned. There they paid homage to their deceased parents, cleaned their tombstones and gravesites, burned fake money and prayed. If anyone want to know even more about this festival, this web site does explain it pretty completely. LINK ->
How can this still be sitting on the Front (Home) Page? After all, it's an invasion of Chinese information onto the American Public and it wasn't even a clandestine invasion. After all, was it not the famous Chinese text The Art of War written by Sun Tzu more than 2500 years ago, in which he said "Know your Enemy"?
I didn't see this on here until just now.
I learned many years ago from my friend from Kauai that QingMing is a very important holiday for Chinese families. His family goes to the Chinese cemetary in their town, Hanalei, for QingMing to clean their relatives' graves. The Chinese cemetary in Hanalei is in a very beautiful spot on a hillside overlooking the Hanalei River. I was on Kauai one time when his uncle had died and I went to the funeral, which is a whole other story. My friend told me it is traditional for Chinese cemetaries to overlook water. As I recall "QingMing" translates in English to "clean and bright".
When I was in Kauai I went up the Hanalei River in a boat to the Fern Grotto, a very verdant spot.
The Fern Grotto is actually on the Wailua River on the east side of Kauai. The Wailua River is the only truly navigable stream in Hawaii. The Hanalei River is on the north shore and the only boating possible there, like the rest of Hawaii's rivers other than the Wailua River, is by kayak. I have gone kayaking on several streams on Kauai, and I have taken the boat trip on the Wailua River to the Fern Grotto.
I made a lot of trips to Kauai beginning more than 40 years ago, and spent a lot of time there. So much time, in fact, that for many years Kauai, and especially Hanalei, was practically my second home, and I have a lot of local friends in the Hanalei/North Shore community, although several of my good friends have now passed away.
Thanks for the correction. I guess that one does forget things like the name of a river after 52 years since I was there - but at least I remembered the name of the Fern Grotto. I remember that on the boat there were a lot of very old people, and I can still recall thinking at the time that I was glad I didn't wait until I was that old to do things like I was doing.
Were you ever at Poipu Beach? We stayed at the Poipu Beach Hotel. One more thing we have not yet talked about - there was a spot called something like the "Moaning (something", where the waves flowed into a small kind of cavern and pressured the air out a hole at the top that made a moaning sound from the pressured air. Other than that beautiful beach we already talked about where I snorkeled at the lagoon at the end of the beach near the mountains, I don't remember anything else about Kauai.
I know Poipu Beach very well. When I first started going to Kauai, that is where I stayed because one of my uncles built a resort there called Poipu Kai and he kept a very nice condo for himself. Whenever I wanted to go there he used to send me the keys and tell me to have fun. Wonderful uncle! He eventually sold his condo, but by that time I was already staying on the North Shore, which I prefer to Poipu, which is on the South Shore. The North Shore/Hanalei is more local and more beautiful than any place else I have ever been.
The spot you are referring to is Spouting Horn, which is near to Poipu. The legend has it that a mo'o, or lizard, is trapped inside the lave tube there, and the sound you hear is the sound of the lizard. It is a blowhole where water also shoots out into the air.
The beach you mentioned is at the end of the road on the North Shore and is called Ke'e Beach. Ke'e Beach is at the foot of the mountains at the beginning of the Kalalau trail on the Na Pali Coast. It is also the site of two of the most important heiaus (Hawaiian temples), and is considered one the most important archaeological sites in the Pacific. It is a very significant location to the Pele legend.
This is a picture of Ke'e Beach from the internet -
That lagoon you see in the middle of the photo is, I believe, the lagoon where I snorkeled and saw multi-coloured fish that would have made evilone's wildest dreams come true. In the trees along the shore at that spot hippies lived in ramshackle tree houses. But as I told you before, I didn't know about what was up on that mountain.
That is a photo of Ke'e Beach. There are no tree houses any longer and have not been for years. Just to the right of the beach and lagoon in the photo is a small rise which is where the heiaus are located.
Here is a view from one of the heiaus above Ke'e Beach. Most heiaus now consist solely of lava rock walls and other rock formations as in the photo. When they were in regular use there were wooden structures on top of the lava rocks, which were the foundations for the wooden structures. The heiaus at Ke'e Beach are still sometimes used by the Hawaiians for certain ceremonies. You can see a lei left on the rocks in the right of the photo.
I recall that from when you first told me about it quite a while ago.