Tomb-sweeping a quieter tribute this year
Tomb-sweepers lay flowers at Haiwanyuan Cemetery in Fengxian District on Monday.
People pay tribute to the deceased at Fushouyuan Cemetery.
Tomb-sweepers enter the Binhai Guyuan Cemetery.
About 900,000 visits were recorded at Shanghai's 54 cemeteries and columbariums between Saturday and Monday, the three-day dongzhi peak for tomb visits, a drop of 26 percent from the same period last year under a reservation system, local civil affairs authorities said.
The Winter Solstice, like the Qingming Festival, is a time for Chinese people to pay respects to their ancestors. This year, it falls on Monday.
Since December 1, around 1.53 million visits were made by tomb-sweepers, according to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.
Because of a reservation system, there were no large gatherings at most city tombs, the bureau said.
A total of 9,906 urns were buried in the city on the day of dongzhi, according to the bureau.
People pay tribute to the deceased at Fushouyuan Cemetery.
A tomb-sweeper has her temperature checked at Haiwanyuan Cemetery.
A traffic police officer guides traffic at Haiwanyuan Cemetery.
Between December 1 and Monday, about 20,000 "online tomb-sweeping" visits were recorded by city cemeteries and columbariums, and 3,228 households requested cemetery staff sweep tombs for them, according to the bureau.
Residents echoed the call for smoke-free tomb-sweeping and the majority used flowers to replace firecrackers and candles, and "online tomb-sweeping” is gradually winning acceptance, the bureau said.
"Online tomb-sweeping" enriches the cultural and social meaning of commemoration, said Ding Changyou, a professor of Tongji University.
"The huge crowd of tomb-sweepers during Qingming and dongzhi posed challenges for city management in the past, and an increasing number of residents are picking other commemorative dates to pay tribute to the deceased, which promotes a new funeral and interment civilization," said Huang Yifei, director of the bureau’s funeral and interment department.
