On 2 April 2009, the news agency Xinhua reported that China launched an online memorial for this year’s remembrance day to commemorate its revolutionary heroes.
The Qingming festival (or “tomb sweeping day” is the traditional Chinese festival to remember the dead. This year, it will be April 4th1 Since 2008, Qingming is an official holiday in the PR China – before that, it has been considered as an outdated traditon from feudal times.
On 26 March 2009 and thus for this year’s Qingming, the Central Civilization Office2 of the Communist Party of the PR China has launched a website as a virtual memorial to remember the revolutionary heroes. According to official sources, until 1 April, the website already had 500,000 visitors, of whom 60,000 left some comments. The website is intended to stay online until at least 14 April.
Being already happy to utter “hello” and “thank you” in Mandarin (while hoping that it does not sound like “chequered cow”), I do not have the slightes clue about the website’s content. Therefore, I restrain myself to the link and some images. In any case, the approach to have a virtual memorial is highly interesting.
- It is quite interesting that Qingming is the only festival that is not being calculated according to the lunar calendar; rather it is taking place on the 15th day after the beginning of spring ↩
- Ignorant as I am, I do not know this organisation with its rather peculiar name, but I am always keen to learn more. ↩