Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    CEMETERIES in Shenzhen saw nearly 320,000 people honoring their deceased relatives in the first two days of the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, or Tomb-sweeping Day holiday, the city’s civil affairs bureau said yesterday.

    The surge in tomb sweepers at the city’s major cemeteries started at around 9 a.m. each day in the past two days. The line of tomb sweepers to Jitian Cemetery, Baoen Fudi Cemetery and Overseas Chinese Cemetery extended for hundreds of meters Sunday. Around 230,000 people visited the cemeteries to honor their deceased on the day.

    “We offered flowers instead of paper and designated areas for tomb sweepers if they want to burn paper to mourn the deceased,” said Pan Zhengyan, head of Shenzhen Funeral Home. The flowers were sold at fair prices.

    It has been 11 years since the volunteers in Nanwan Subdistrict Volunteer Association began serving at Jitian Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the city, and Shenzhen Funeral Home. The association has more than 200 volunteers and the eldest is 70 years old.

    “We arranged 60 volunteers to serve at the cemetery and funeral home. The job is mainly to help traffic police guide traffic and tomb sweepers, carry sacrifices for tomb sweepers and help the elderly and young,” Xue Ming- liang, secretary general of the association, said in an interview. It was the first time that Lin Lin served as a volunteer at Jitian Cemetery.

    “My duty is to maintain order and guide tomb sweepers. We work about six hours a day, hoping to help more people,” said Lin.

    At Baoen Fudi Cemetery, the funeral administration for the first time used drones to explore the cemetery area to prevent fire hazards. The administration organized the charitable sale of flowers, and tomb visitors can donate the money they spent on the flowers to help those in need.

    No serious traffic accidents have occurred and the traffic situation was better than in previous years as more residents used public transport to make their tomb-sweeping visits.

    Sources from Shenzhen traffic police showed that the city’s east had seen heavy traffic due to the fine weather that resulted in a surge of holidaymakers to Dapeng.

    Nationally, a total of 5.3 million Chinese visited 150 major cemeteries to honor their deceased relatives Sunday. The number of people visiting burial sites across the nation increased by 34.2 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

    Tomb-sweeping Day, or Qingming, falls in early April and is a time when Chinese people commemorate their deceased loved ones by visiting tombs and offering sacrifices. Modern and more eco-friendly ways of honoring the deceased have emerged in recent years such as “Internet tomb-sweeping” and sea burials.