Ching Ming Festival

paper dim sum

Tomorrow is a public holiday!  It is Ching Ming Festival (also known as "grave sweeping day" or "ancestor remembrance day").  Families visit their ancestors grave for the next 2 days and burn paper offerings, leave a feast out as an offering (apparently they can eat it too) and clean and sweep up their graves.  I heard that some might even dig up the bones and clean them before re-setting them back in the grave. 
I never get tired of these paper offerings that you see for sale... I love the idea of buying your dead ancestor's favorite items in paper form.  I'm hoping to maybe catch sight of some of the celebrations tomorrow before I head off to Beijing!
YES- tomorrow I leave for Beijing!  I'm not sure what kind of access I'll have to the internet so I lined up some posts to automatically post while I'm away.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of photos and stories to post when I get back.