There's a national holiday. I always forget, but I'm a Taiwanese Hakka, so I don't think it's my fault. Because as Taiwanese Hakka, we have different days to go to clean the graves and worship ancestors from other Taiwanese, and usually we choose to do it earlier than this holiday, so the holiday I am talk about is 清明節 Qingming Festival.
Before we talk about 清明節, we need to know the difference between 春節 and 春假.
春節(農曆年節) and 春假(清明連假)
These two words all have 春 spring in them, so We know that these two are very important holidays in the spring春天.
Taiwan's 春節 Lunar New Year holidays are from the day before New Year's Eve to the fifth. On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, many companies and stores will hold sacrifices to welcome the God of Wealth. The owners will invite their employees to join them in sacrifices to pray for a booming business.
Since it is based on the lunar calendar, in modern times the actual dates are planned in conjunction with the Common Era, so the dates are different every year.
春假 is on April 4 and 5. April 4 is 兒童節 Children's Day, and April 5 is the Qingming Festival, also known as 「民族掃墓節」National Tomb Sweeping Day. Sometimes, if there is only one working day in between, the government will choose to let that day off, then the whole Qingming holidays will be five days, kind of like spring break, so we also call it 春假.
Ok, let's recap their differences.
Now go back to the 清明節.
清明節 Qingming Festival
清明 is the name of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar.
The solar term節氣 divides the year into 24 periods, the names of which reflect the change in the seasons and the climate. For example, 立春 is the beginning of spring on this day.
So the climate of 清明 is usually a cloudless blue sky with bright sunshine, and the weather is clear and crisp. There are many reasons for choosing this day as the National Tomb Sweeping Day, but none of them is important. The most important thing in 清明 is to clean the grave 掃墓.
What is 掃墓? We will go to the ancestor's cemetery to clean the grave and prepare the food offerings for the ancestor's worship to pay respect to the grave.
Also, it is a good day for picnics and outings, and Children's Day is the day before the 清明節, so instead of saying that the main activity during the 清明節 is to clean the grave, it would be better to say is to take the children out for a fun day after cleaning.
Of course, for us Taiwanese Hakkas, it is just a day with great weather, perfect for an outing.
No doubt, Taiwan's Holidays are bound to be related to eating.
The foods of 清明節
潤餅 Fresh Spring Roll
Fresh Spring Roll is similar to a spring roll. The fillings are rolled up with a piece of dough. However, spring rolls are fried and eaten hot, while fresh spring rolls are eaten after the fillings have cooled.
紅龜粿(hong gui gui)、草仔粿(cao zai guo)
Pronounced with Taiwanese Hokkien.
Hong-gui-gui is made with glutinous rice and red bean paste.
Cao-zai-guo is made with glutinous rice and mugwort.
必勝客 Pizza Hut Taiwan launches a new pizza 芝心雙粿草仔龜比薩 this year.
The little cute turtle is what Pizza Hut thinks it should look like.
These are the actual looks. They look like they were hit by a car... and not just once, but many times.
I left some search terms for you, let's see all kinds of squashed turtles....oh...pizza. Let's look at specialty pizzas.
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