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Archive for the 'Ching Ming Festival' Category

Contents

Qingming Poem by Du Mu with an MP3 Recording

Qingming Festival in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

Qingming – Festival of Pure Brightness – 清明節

Hina Matsuri 雛祭り – The Doll Festival in Japan – Has its Roots in an Old Chinese Purification Ceremony

Posts

Qingming Poem by Du Mu with an MP3 Recording

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Yesterday, I posted the poem Qingming by the poet Du Mu (803 – 852) that mentions the Qingming Festival (also called Ching Ming). I asked my friend Ray Lee about it. He grew up in Hong Kong and I wanted to hear his impression about the poem and also my translation of it (below). Here’s what Ray wrote:

This is indeed a very well known poem. We were taught this poem when we were in school. I don’t know if they still teach this in school. Even if they don’t, the school kids are bound to hear it from their parents or on TV or read about it somewhere.

The translation you have is pretty good. I am not sure about the second line though. I have always thought it said, “pedestrians on the road are like ghosts,” because of the rain.

Below you can find the Chinese text, the Pinyin and an English translation I had done of the poem Qingming plus an mp3 of Qingming being recited…

Ching Ming

It’s raining hard at the time of the Ching Ming Festival,
The mourner’s heart is overwhelmed on the road upland.
May I ask where there’s a tavern to drown my sorrows?
The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village in the distance.

清  明

清    明     时 节   雨   纷 纷，

路    上     行  人    欲    断  魂。

借  问    酒 家  何 处  有，

牧  童    遥    指  杏   花  村。

qīng míng shí jié yǔ fēn fēn
lù shàng xíng rén yù duàn hún
jiè wèn jiǔ jiā hé chù yǒu
mù tóng yáo zhǐ xìng huā cūn

MP3 of the Qingming Poem

Ray later wrote to me about the second line:

There is another translation on the Internet that is somewhere between my translation and yours. This one says something like travelers all look gloomy and miserable.

Thanks, Ray, for letting us know more about this poem!

The poem was read by Jia Zhou for Librevox.

If anyone would like to comment about the translation, please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below or to email me at lisa@mamalisa.com .

Below you can read posts about the Chingming Festival…

•Qingming Poem by Du Mu with an MP3 Recording

•Qingming Festival in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

•Qingming - Festival of Pure Brightness - 清明節

•Hina Matsuri 雛祭り - The Doll Festival in Japan - Has its Roots in an Old Chinese Purification Ceremony

-Mama Lisa

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Posted in Cantonese, China, Chinese, Ching Ming, Ching Ming Festival, Countries & Cultures, Du Mu, Holiday Poems, Holidays Around the World, Hong Kong, Languages, Mama Lisa, Mandarin, Poems about Spring, Poetry, Poetry about the Seasons, Poets, Qingming, Taiwan | 1 Comment »

Qingming Festival in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

The Qingming Festival is on April 4th this year in China, and on the 5th in Taiwan. In Taiwan it’s called Tomb Sweeping Day.

This day is a remembrance of ancestors – it’s similar to All Saints Day and The Day of the Dead. People clean the tombs of their ancestors and offer them food, drink, joss (paper gifts) and spirit money (not real currency). Some people carry willow branches to ward off the evil spirits that are thought to roam the earth on this day.

Qingming is also a celebration of the spring. People have picnics, play on swings and fly kites.

There is a well-known poem by the poet Du Mu (803 – 852) that mentions this day. Below you can find the Chinese text, the Pinyin and an English translation I tried my hand!

MP3 of the Ching Ming Poem

Ching Ming

It’s raining hard at the time of the Ching Ming Festival,
The mourner’s heart is overwhelmed on the road upland.
May I ask where there’s a tavern to drown my sorrows?
The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village in the distance.

清  明

清    明     时 节   雨   纷 纷，

路    上     行  人    欲    断  魂。

借  问    酒 家  何 处  有，

牧  童    遥    指  杏   花  村。

qīng míng shí jié yǔ fēn fēn
lù shàng xíng rén yù duàn hún
jiè wèn jiǔ jiā hé chù yǒu
mù tóng yáo zhǐ xìng huā cūn

Below you can read other posts about the Chingming Festival…

•Qingming Poem by Du Mu with an MP3 Recording

•Qingming Festival in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

•Qingming - Festival of Pure Brightness - 清明節

•Hina Matsuri 雛祭り - The Doll Festival in Japan - Has its Roots in an Old Chinese Purification Ceremony

Feel free to share your holiday photos or traditions by commenting below or emailing me at lisa@mamalisa.com.

Mama Lisa

The poem was read by Jia Zhou for Librevox.

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Posted in China, Chinese, Ching Ming, Ching Ming Festival, Countries & Cultures, Du Mu, Holidays Around the World, Hong Kong, Languages, Mama Lisa, Poetry, Poets, Qingming, Taiwan, Tomb Sweeping Day | 1 Comment »

Qingming – Festival of Pure Brightness – 清明節

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

The Qingming Festival takes place on April 4, 5, or 6th – whichever is the 104th day after the winter solstice. It’s celebrated in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Qingming has many names and spellings: Qingming, Ching Ming, Ch’ing Ming, Qing Ming Jie. In English it’s been called Clear Brightness Festival, Remembrance of Ancestors Day, Grave Sweeping Day, and Spring Festival.

Qingming is a festival to honor the dead – similar in some ways to The Day of the Dead in Mexico. It’s thought that it’s important to keep ancestors happy in order to have good luck. Qingming is a good occasion to fulfill this obligation.

First, people go to the graves of their family members and clean them. They sweep away debris, pull up weeds and sometimes plant flowers.

I asked Ray Lee about what he did for Ching Ming Festival growing up in Hong Kong. He said, “That’s when we would go to the grave site of our grandparents and leave flowers for them.”

Hanchao from China said she would also go and clean off the graves of her relatives who had passed away. Sometimes her family would burn paper money. The money is for the deceased to use in the afterlife. (It’s not actual currency – it’s called spirit money.) It’s also traditional to burn incense.

People also put out food and drink near the tombstone for their ancestors. Hanchao said, “We put steamed buns, fruits, and wine and food at the grave, that the people who passed away liked when they were alive, and we light incense.”

Qingming is also a day to celebrate the Spring. After tending the grave and offering food, the family will sometimes have a picnic and enjoy the fresh air. People sometimes play games and fly kites.

Please feel free to let us know what your family and friends would do for Qingming in the comments below.

-Lisa

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Posted in China, Chinese, Ching Ming Festival, Countries & Cultures, Customs, Holidays Around the World, Hong Kong, Languages, Mama Lisa, Qingming, Taiwan | No Comments »

Hina Matsuri 雛祭り – The Doll Festival in Japan – Has its Roots in an Old Chinese Purification Ceremony

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Tomorrow, March 3rd, is the Hina Matsuri 雛祭り or Doll Festival in Japan.

The Japanese celebration seems to have originated in China, where there was a festival called Shang-suu that had also been celebrated on March 3rd, at least since the 3rd century AD. Shang-suu may go back before that time but the date may have shifted. (It looks like Shang-suu eventually merged with the Ching Ming Festival – Remembrance of Ancestors Day – which is still celebrated today in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now it takes place on April 4th or 5th.)

Shang-suu was a day of purification. Suu stands for snake, so for convenience, I’ll translate it here as the Day of the Snake (as it came to be called later in Japan). In China, Shamans were considered people who could see evil spirits. On Shang-suu, the shamans gave people baths using herbs in rivers to wash away the evil spirits.

We know that by the 11th century in Japan, the nobles had adapted a similar ceremony. This was called Mi-no-hi or jō-shi. We can date it because it’s mentioned in a book of the times called the Tales of Genji. By that time, it wasn’t the actual person who was cleansed in the river, but a doll who represented him or her.

In the Tales of Genji it says, “It was the day of the serpent, the first such day in the Third Month. ‘The day when a man who has worries goes down and washes them away,’ said one of his (Genji’s) men, admirably informed, it would seem, in all the annual observances. Genji thought he could see something of himself in the rather large doll being cast off to sea, bearing away sins and tribulations. ‘Cast away to drift on an alien vastness, I grieve for more than a doll cast out to sea.’”

Today, in parts of Japan, some people still load boats with dolls and send them off to sea. Now, though, the festival is mostly for girls. It’s called Hina Nagashi Matsuri or Floating Dolls Festival. Traditionally, people first rub the dolls to pass any bad luck onto the doll. Then they let the doll float down the river in a little boat and then out to sea to cast off all evilness and bad spirits.

In some towns they load up big boats and many people cast their old dolls in them. In the photo below, the dolls are actually made with fish food!

Between the 11th century and today, the tradition of Hina Nagashi Matsuri went from being mainly for the nobility to spreading to the whole population. Part of the reason for this was that merchants wanted to sell their paper dolls at this time of year. So they encouraged more of the population to buy them. By the 18th century, the dolls became more intricate and expensive. People no longer wanted to float them out to sea. So they started bringing them to temples to get rid of the evil.

Eventually, people started buying alters for their dolls called hina dan (doll alter) on which to display them in their own homes. These became like shrines. They made offerings of shirosake (sweet sake made from fermented rice) and hishi mochi (diamond-shaped rice cakes with three to five layers). The alters are decorated with peach blossoms which is thought to repel evilness.

The hina matsuri dolls are now called hina ningyo. They’re often passed down from mother to daughter from generation to generation. The hope behind celebrating the Hina Matsuri is that the daughter will live a long, healthy and happy life.

Here’s the Hina Matsuri Song that’s sung all over Japan on this day. You can hear it being sung by Sakura and Hatsami…

MP3 of the Hina Matsuri Song

Hina Matsuri Song

Transliterated Japanese

Akari o tsukema sho bon bori ni
O hana o agemasyo momo no hana
Gonin – bayashi no fue daiko
Kyoo wa tanoshii Hina Matsuri

Loose English Translation

Let’s light the lanterns on the tiered stand
Let’s put peach blossoms on the tiered stand
Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums
Today is a Happy Dolls’ Festival.

Japanese Text for the Hina Matsuri Song

うれしいひなまつり

Happy Hina Matsuri!

You can read more about Hina Matsuri in a previous post I wrote about it. It tells more about the hina ningyo dolls.

You can visit the Mama Lisa’s World Hina Matsuri Song Page for sheet music for this song.

Many thanks to Sakura and Hatsami for singing the Hina Matsuri Song and to Peter Galante of Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com for allowing us to use this wonderful recording! The recording is from their podcast about the Hina Matsuri Festival (it’s mainly in English).

For anyone interested in reading more about Shang-ssu and Hina Matsuri, I’d recommend an article by Alsace Yen called Shang-ssu Festival and Its Myths in China and Japan

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Posted in China, Ching Ming Festival, Countries & Cultures, English, Hina Matsuri - Doll Festival - Girls' Day, Hina Matsuri Song, Holiday Songs, Holidays Around the World, Japan, Japanese, Japanese Kids Songs, Languages, Mama Lisa, Momo no Sekku - Peach Blossom Festival, Questions, USA | 1 Comment »

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