***DATE 04.04.13***
**Grave-Sweeping Day**
**Ancestors Day or All Souls Day**
Ching Ming literally translates as ‘clean and bright ‘,
and this is the day that Chinese people sweep the graves of their ancestors.
But the tidy up doesn’t end there;
the festival is an important ancestor worship ritual
that also requires families to weed graves,
touch up headstone inscriptions, make offerings of food and light incense.
Traditionally,
many people burn paper offerings at gravesites
during the festival for their ancestors to use in the afterlife.
The most popular of these used to be faux cash,
but it appears the consumer demands of the earthly realm
have crossed over into the hereafter,
because people nowadays also burn paper imitations of mobile phones,
laptops, refrigerators, air-conditioners and even luxury cars.
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