The earliest written record about "Tomb-Sweeping Day" comes from the Astronomical Training of Huainanzi edited by Liu An (BC 179- 122). "Fifteen days after the vernal equinox, Dou refers to B, which means Tomb-Sweeping Day". It contains two meanings, one is solar terms, and the other is festivals. The main reason why the 24 solar terms evolved into festivals is "Qingming". According to the chronicle of Jingchu's age, "on the 150 th day of last winter festival, there was a flurry of rain, called' cold food', and there was no fire for three days." In other words, the interval from winter solstice to "Cold Food Festival" is 105 days. The Cold Food Festival originated in the Warring States Period, when Zhong Er, the son of the State of Jin, and his entourage Jiexiu got lost in the mountains. Zhong Er is hungry and dizzy. Jie tui cut off a piece of meat on his leg and gave it to him after barbecue. 19 years later, Zhong Er became king, and he wanted to repay his benefactor. Unexpectedly, meson tui was burned to death in the forest. In memory of him, Zhong Er ordered "no fire for three days, no cold food for three days". Later, the first day of cold food was called "Cold Food Festival". The ancients also said that "the sixteenth day of the winter solstice is Qingming", from which it can be inferred that cold food is the day before Qingming. Because cold food is near Qingming, the ancients often extended cold food to Qingming. Over time, there is no strict difference between cold food and Qingming. Now people call it cold food and Qingming. One of the Qingming customs: sweeping graves was a thing after the Qin Dynasty, and it didn't prevail until the Tang Dynasty. In the twentieth year of Kaiyuan (AD 732), Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty ordered: "It has become a custom to go to the grave to eat cold food without scriptures, and it has been passed down from generation to generation, so it should be allowed to be the norm." So on Qingming Day, "officials are in the city, and they all go out to bury their graves in the suburbs to think about the time." Because of the Qingming Festival, great spring scenery, singing and dancing, and the earth turning green, "the spring grass in the ancient tomb is green, and the ground is full of life and death." At this time, people often miss their old friends, so sweeping graves has become a kind of "respect for missing time", the second custom in Tomb-Sweeping Day: outing, also called spring outing. In ancient times, it was called exploring spring and seeking spring. Legend has it that the Qingming outing began a long time ago. According to "Old Tang Book", "In February of the second year of Dali, at noon, it was fortunate that Kunming was green." It can be seen that the custom of spring outing has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Du Fu has a poem "Walk by the river, then see the standard". In Song Dynasty, outing was very popular. The genre painting The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan, a famous painter in the Song Dynasty (the date of birth and death is unknown), vividly depicts the lively scene of the Qingming Festival centered on the Bianhe River outside Bianjing. In this picture, there are more than 550 figures, more than 50 livestock, more than 20 ships and more than 20 cars and sedan chairs. Because spring comes at different times all over the country, there is a festival for the first outing. February is an outing festival in Fujian, and March 3 is an outing festival in Shaanxi. Beijing and Northeast China started hiking on the fifth day of May, because spring came very late. The third custom of Tomb-Sweeping Day: Playing in ancient times was still popular in Tomb-Sweeping Day. Wang Jian (AD 75 1-835) wrote in his poem "Two floors in front of the temple, ladies-in-waiting in cold food play football", which describes the situation of ladies-in-waiting in the Tang Dynasty playing football in cold food and Qingming. There are two ways to play, one is stepping, that is, "cuju", and the other is polo, which is also called "polo" when riding a horse and hitting it with a stick. Cuju means kicking, and Cuju is the name of the ball, which is a ball with leather as its shell and covered with hair. China has been playing football for four or five thousand years. By the Tang Dynasty, football had a great development and improvement. Cuju's equipment has been improved into an inflatable "balloon" by this time, with a goal, divided into two teams, A and B, and scoring goals, similar to modern football matches. There are folk records of women playing well. In the Tang Dynasty, Kang Pian (the year of birth and death is unknown) wrote a story about drama: "Chao, I once visited Shengyefang North Street in the future ... There were three girls who were small cuju players in the army at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and then sent them there, reaching a few feet high; So the audience gradually gathered. Super unique and different. " In the Song Dynasty, polo was still popular in the army, and a folk club organization similar to polo appeared in Lin 'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, polo was still a favorite game of emperors, and it was usually played in combination with other sports, especially military exercises, around Tomb-Sweeping Day and Dragon Boat Festival every year. The fourth custom of Qingming Festival: Flying kites is very popular in many places. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,000 years ago, the famous craftsman Lu Ban had made wooden kites and put them in the air for three months. Mozi also made wooden kites. After the Tang Dynasty, wooden kites were gradually replaced by paper kites. In the Five Dynasties, bamboo flutes were attached to the head of paper kites, silk whips were put on, and the bamboo flutes were blown by the wind, making a sound very similar to that of the musical instrument "Zheng", hence the name. Gao Pian, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his poem Kite: "Quiet strings cry blue at night, and palace merchants believe in the wind. It's like a song, but it is blown by the wind. " Flying kites at that time was not only equipped with strings or flutes, but also brought bright and luxurious lanterns to the night sky. In the Qing Dynasty, flying kites was more popular, especially in Beijing, where children and old people competed to fly kites together for fun. Making kites requires understanding some aesthetic principles and physical knowledge. There are many skilled craftsmen who are good at making kites all over the south of the Yangtze River and around Beijing and Tianjin. In particular, Tianjin "Kite Wei" has been engaged in this art and craft specialty for three generations, with exquisite production and unique style. Kites have spread to Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Arabia, Europe and America. British scholar Joseph Needham listed kites as one of the major scientific inventions spread by the Chinese nation to Europe in his book History of Science and Technology in China. 1752 On a stormy summer day, on the hilly land of Corolla, a suburb of Philadelphia, USA, Franklin and his son set up a kite made of metal wire and silk. Along the wet kite line, the lightning in the air was led to a bunch of keys not far from the ground, giving off exciting sparks, which proved that lightning was a discharge phenomenon and revealed the mystery of lightning for the first time. The following year, Franklin invented the lightning rod to protect tall buildings. Nowadays, kite fever is on the rise in many countries. It is said that Japan has been flying kites for 1000 years, and Kyushu, Hejun and Sanhe all have "Kite Street". There are more than 90 shops selling kites in the United States, with an annual sales volume of 65.438+50 billion kites, and there are 3 kites for every 4 people. Two million kites are sold in Britain every year, and there is one kite for every nine families on average. 1April, 984, the first international kite fair was held in Weifang, Shandong, one of the four major kite producing areas in China. Many Weifang kites have flown all over the world. The fifth custom of Tomb-Sweeping Day: Tug of War Tomb-Sweeping Day also has the custom of holding tug-of-war competitions. Tug of war is an ancient sport in China. On the rise of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. At that time, the form of tug-of-war was basically the same as today, except that the rope used for tug-of-war today was a single rope, while the rope used in ancient times was "hundreds of small ropes at both ends", so the number of people in ancient times was much larger than now, and the scene was bigger and more lively. Tug of war is the most popular sport in Tang Dynasty. According to "The Book of the New Tang Dynasty, Zhong Zong Ji", "In the fourth year of Jinglong (AD 7 10), Zhong Zong and the empress were fortunate in Xuanwumen, watching the palace maids tug-of-war and fighting for the palace market". In this year's Tomb-Sweeping Day, the emperor also "ordered officials to have more than five crystals, civil and military officials to have more than three crystals, and bachelor's degrees.". To enter from Fanglinmen, meet at Liyuan Gymnasium, and friends will go to tug of war, and the emperor, queen and princess will go to see it. " Described the scene of tug-of-war: "At that time, the seven prime ministers, two Xu horses, three prime ministers and five generals were Peng. There are many friends in the East, but friends in the West will not win. Please make a new decision. If you don't change, your friends in the West will be gone. " Prime Minister Xu and the general fought side by side, to outdo each other. This is really an unprecedented tug-of-war in sports history. Li Longji (685-762 AD) was not only a football fan, but also a tug-of-war enthusiast. He actively promoted tug-of-war training in the army, and personally wrote a poem "Watching Tug-of-War Folk Drama", describing the spectacular scene of tug-of-war in the army: a strong man is brave and refuses to reach the long river. If you want to live up to your heroic ambition, you must know that there are many winners and losers. Due to the vigorous advocacy of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the tug-of-war became more and more prosperous and the scale became larger and larger. Finally, I moved from the pear garden in the palace to the square outside the palace.