Good weather brings rush of cemetery visitors

Despite the warm sunshine and blossoming flowers, Guan Ping wasn't really in the mood to enjoy a spring outing on Sunday because her schedule was packed with the annual family tomb-sweeping activities.

Guan, a civil servant in Beijing, woke up at 5 am on Sunday and then set out with her cousin, trying to avoid possible traffic jams caused by the many grave visitors during the tomb-sweeping rush over the weekend.

"I expected the huge flow of people traveling to cemeteries around the city, but the overcrowded scene was beyond my imagination," Guan said of the long line of cars waiting outside the gate of Siqinyuan, a public cemetery in the southwest suburb of Beijing, at about 7:30 am.