Walking across campus this past weekend, it was impossible not to notice that spring had finally arrived. The grass had turned green, trees were beginning to bud, and everything felt a little lighter. With Easter just behind us, many people had returned home for egg hunts, festive meals, and time with family. I, too, had a small taste of Easter on campus from Mr. Becker’s large assortment of chocolate treats in Matsumura.
While Easter was on everyone’s mind, I found myself thinking about a subtle yet meaningful coincidence. This year, Qingming, the Chinese tomb-sweeping festival, had the exact same dates as Easter.
Celebrated for over 2,500 years, Qingming is an ancient tradition dating back to the Zhou Dynasty. Put simply, it’s almost like a Chinese Día de Muertos. Much like the Mexican Day of the Dead, Qingming is a time when families come together to honor their ancestors through rituals and ceremonies. During this time, spring is at the stage of revival, and the bright warm air seems to celebrate life itself, so the name literally translates to “the day of pure brightness.”
For me, as someone who grew up in China, it was never just a ritual: It was a feeling. I remember climbing hills with my family, hiking through fresh air damp with the scent of spring grass, and carrying boxes of green herbal cakes known as Qingtuan. We would clean the tomb of our ancestors and then sit beside them, laying out food as if they were quietly joining us. As we enjoyed the qingtuans and burned offerings with our ancestors, thin streams of smoke of burned incense and paper money curled upward, and flakes of ash drifted with the wind. Back then, I didn’t fully understand the meaning of it all; it felt like a picnic more than a ceremony. Looking back, I realize it was a way of staying connected—to family, to memory, and to those who came before us.
What strikes me then is how similar Qingming and Easter feel, even though they come from completely different cultures. Both are tied to spring, to renewal, and to remembering who we are.
I think this coincidence says something important. Even cultures across oceans can reflect on universal values and create meaningful, beautiful traditions. Nowadays, with the rise of xenophobia and division, it can be easy to focus on what makes us different rather than what brings us together as humans. But moments like this remind me that, at a deeper level, we share the same ways of understanding life—through remembrance and connection.
As spring settles in, maybe this is a good moment to do both—to remember the familiar traditions we grew up with, but also to connect to the ones we didn’t. Because in the end, whether it’s Easter or Qingming, both are really about the same thing: remembering, reconnecting, and moving forward.
