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Friday, 29 March 2024

China's Wuhan marks quiet Tomb-Sweeping Festival

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China's Wuhan marks quiet Tomb-Sweeping Festival
China's Wuhan marks quiet Tomb-Sweeping Festival

Coronavirus has changed China's Tomb-Sweeping Festival this year, above all in Wuhan.

Usually millions of families travel to tend ancestral graves, but on Saturday (April 4) cemetery workers performed those rites.

Lucy Fielder reports.

China's ancient tomb-sweeping day festival has changed this year, especially in Wuhan.

As Chinese authorities discourage the practice under lockdown.

Normally, millions of families go to ancestral graves to offer flowers and burn incense for the day also known as Qingming.

Prevented from traveling, this couple burned joss paper on the sidewalk within their housing compound.

To commemorate health workers who gave their lives in Wuhan, where the outbreak began, as well as their ancestors.

(SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) LOCAL RESIDENT, MR. XIA, SAYING: "We commemorate the white shirts, the white shirts who were fighting at the frontline.

It's an honourable courtesy.

There was a nurse who died and she was quite young, she was 29 years old.

We should commemorate her.

When we commemorate her I need to pray twice.

This is what I did.

" Chinese authorities have told residents to watch cemetery staff perform rites via online streaming.

China also observed three minutes of silence Saturday, to mourn the thousands who died fighting the epidemic.

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