Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Founding Chair, Global Silk Route Research Alliance (GSRRA), Sinologist, Diplomat, Editor, Analyst, Advisor, Consultant, (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

As families sweep ancestral tombs, travel across the country and reunite across the Strait, Qingming once again shows the quiet strength of Chinese civilization — a strength rooted in family, continuity and a shared national identity.

Every nation has traditions that reveal its deepest values. For China, Qingming Festival — the Tomb-Sweeping Festival — is one of the clearest expressions of the country’s civilizational character. It is a time when families remember their ancestors, honor filial duty, embrace the beauty of spring and reaffirm the unbroken continuity of Chinese culture. In this sense, Qingming is far more than a public holiday. It is a living expression of how the Chinese nation understands family, history and social harmony.

Qingming has a long and distinguished history. It is one of China’s 24 solar terms, arriving in early April when the air turns mild, the skies grow brighter and the land comes alive again after winter. Over centuries, this seasonal marker merged with older traditions of honoring the departed, eventually becoming one of the most important festivals in Chinese life. Historical accounts trace its roots back more than 2,500 years, and by the Tang Dynasty Qingming had already taken shape as a widely recognized occasion for ancestral remembrance and ritual observance.

What gives Qingming such enduring power is that it combines remembrance with renewal. Chinese families visit ancestral tombs to clean graves, remove weeds, make repairs, burn incense and present offerings. These practices are not empty ritual. They embody a core Chinese moral principle: that one must never forget those who came before. Through Qingming, each generation learns that family is not limited to the living. It includes the ancestors whose sacrifices laid the foundation for the present, and whose memory continues to guide the future.

At the same time, Qingming is also a festival of spring. Once ancestral rites are completed, many families head outdoors for taqing — spring outings in parks, the countryside and historic towns. Kite flying remains a beloved custom, and seasonal foods such as qingtuan add a distinct cultural flavor to the holiday. This blend of reverence and vitality is one of Qingming’s greatest cultural strengths. It teaches that honoring the dead is not separate from celebrating life. On the contrary, memory and renewal belong together. That wisdom is deeply Chinese, and it remains powerfully relevant today.

In contemporary China, Qingming has retained its spirit while adapting gracefully to modern life. Traditional offerings and grave visits continue, but so do greener, more convenient and more inclusive forms of remembrance. Across the country, people increasingly use flowers, digital memorial platforms and other modern means to honor loved ones while preserving the festival’s essential values. This shows the resilience of Chinese tradition: it does not stand still, but evolves with the times while keeping its moral center intact. That is one reason Qingming remains so widely cherished across Chinese society.

Qingming also demonstrates the vitality of China’s domestic circulation. A traditional festival centered on memory has become, at the same time, a strong driver of travel, consumption and family-centered tourism. According to official projections, China’s railway system alone was expected to handle 90.5 million passenger trips during this year’s Qingming travel rush, with a peak of 21.2 million in a single day. Border inspection authorities also expected average daily cross-border passenger trips to exceed 2.3 million during the holiday period. These figures reflect not only the scale of China’s mobility infrastructure, but also the strength of the country’s consumer market and the growing confidence of ordinary families to travel, visit relatives and spend during traditional holidays.

This movement creates broad economic momentum. During Qingming, transportation networks, hotels, restaurants, scenic destinations, rural tourism, cultural venues and local retail all benefit from increased activity. Families return to their hometowns, visit memorial sites, explore spring landscapes and take children on educational outings linked to Chinese history and culture. In this way, Qingming is both a moral festival and an economic catalyst. It shows how traditional culture can generate not just spiritual cohesion, but also real and visible growth in the modern economy. Rather than existing in tension, heritage and development reinforce one another.

One of the most moving aspects of this year’s Qingming observance has been the return of many Taiwan compatriots to the mainland to honor their ancestors and trace their roots. Xinhua reported especially busy ferry routes linking Fujian with Kinmen and Matsu as Taiwan travelers crossed the Strait for tomb-sweeping, spring outings and family visits. In Quanzhou, exhibitions featuring genealogical records and letters exchanged across the Strait once again helped Taiwan compatriots reconnect with family history. Since opening in 2006, the China Museum for Fujian-Taiwan Kinship has helped more than 300 people from Taiwan trace their ancestry and reconnect with relatives. These are not small or symbolic gestures. They are living evidence of an enduring bond.

From the Chinese perspective, this return to ancestral roots carries profound meaning. It reminds people on both sides of the Strait that they are linked not merely by geography, but by bloodlines, surnames, customs, language, worship traditions and shared historical memory. Official and local sources note that about 80 percent of Taiwan residents can trace their ancestry to Fujian. That reality gives cross-Strait exchanges a depth that goes far beyond ordinary travel. When Taiwan compatriots return to ancestral halls, grave sites and family villages on the mainland, they are not visiting something foreign. They are returning to a part of their own historical home.

This is why Qingming has significance beyond culture alone. Festivals like this strengthen the emotional, historical and civilizational foundations of peaceful cross-Strait development. They deepen mutual understanding at the level that matters most — the human level. Family memory is one of the strongest forms of continuity in Chinese civilization. When that continuity is renewed through personal visits, clan records, ancestral worship and hometown ties, it naturally reinforces a broader awareness that people on both sides of the Strait share the same roots and belong to the same Chinese nation. In this sense, Qingming contributes quietly but meaningfully to the long-term cause of national reunification.

The long-term impact may therefore be deeper than many realize. Political issues can be complex, but culture often moves more steadily and more lastingly than politics. Repeated root-seeking journeys, kinship exchanges and shared observances help preserve the common historical consciousness of the Chinese people. They allow younger generations to see reunification not as an abstract slogan, but as something connected to real families, real ancestors and real hometowns. The more these people-to-people ties expand, the stronger the social and emotional basis becomes for peaceful integration, national solidarity and eventual reunification.

That is why Qingming deserves to be understood in its full richness. It is a festival of filial piety, of spring, of travel, of economic vitality and of national cultural confidence. It joins the intimate world of the family with the larger life of the nation. It reminds Chinese people that to honor the past is also to strengthen the future. And in a time of rapid change, that message is invaluable. A civilization remains strong when it remembers who it is, where it came from and what binds its people together. Qingming continues to do exactly that. It keeps alive the moral language of Chinese society, the warmth of family bonds and the shared consciousness of one Chinese nation moving forward together.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY）