QingMing

Do you know that "Tomb Sweeping Day" or "Clear Brightness Festival" is the most common English translation of QingMing Festival? I kid you not, I just knew about it too a while back, and is written in Wikipedia here.

For a simpler summary about QingMing, read below.

One major event in the Chinese calendar, observed by Chinese communities all over the world is All Souls Day, also known as Cheng Beng or Qing Ming, which falls on April 5 every year except on leap years when it falls on April 4.

During this period, the Chinese community will visit graves of deceased family members and ancestors to pay their respects. It can be done 10 days before and after the actual date of Cheng Beng. Graves are weeded and cleaned, joss-paper is burnt, and offerings are made.

(sourced from here ...)

With that being said, today is QingMing Festival day, falls on 4th of April in leap year 2008.

Like every other year, it is very common thing now to see NEW "product" made of joss-paper sold for the festival. In the past, we have seen handphone, ferrari, laptop, tv, fridge etcetra etcetra.

And while driving down the city street today for lunch, me and my colleagues spotted 2 newest additions to the joss-paper offering =) Pretty interesting, because they now have LV bags series and sexy bikini series sold o_o

So, what is next for next year? Any guess?

On personal note, this year, my parent decided to skip the ancestor's grave visiting and will only hold a small prayer at home. It will be a simple one this year.