The upcoming weekend will see an anticipated spike in traffic during the first peak of the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, the police in Jiangsu has said.
The period from this weekend to the Qingming Festival in early April will see cemeteries and graveyards overwhelmed by large numbers of tomb-sweepers.
The local police said the heavy traffic around the cemeteries is expected to last till April 4th, the next day after the Qingming Festival.
Cemetery authorities in Jiangsu are advising the local people to refrain from worshipping their deceased ancestors on weekends. The traffic police will impose a traffic control on the roads leading into the cemeteries.
Yuhua Gongde Cemetery in Nanjing City has announced that it will build the city's first green and smokeless cemetery by instructing step by step the tomb sweepers not to burn paper money so as to cut carbon emissions.
Some cemeteries have launched websites that will allow people to perform the ritual of tomb sweeping online. Rather than heading back home and visiting the burial place, the online tomb sweeping services enable people to go through such rituals via the online world.
Tomb sweeping websites are becoming extremely popular in the age of technology, especially during the Qingming or Tomb-sweeping Festival.
According to the Provincial Civil Affairs Department, during this year’s Qingming Festival period, around 30 million tomb sweepers will visit graveyards and cemeteries across the province.
The Tomb-Sweeping Festival or Qingming Festival is a time for the Chinese people to visit their ancestors’ tombs. More importantly, it is a period to honor and to pay respect to one's deceased ancestors and family members.
As a major Chinese festival, it has been added to the government's list of public holidays with two other Chinese traditional festivals, which are Dragon-Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival.
(Source:Jiangsu International Channel)
