New lease of life for traditional spring custom

WITH TOMB SWEEPING day approaching, Changsong Temple Public Cemetery in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, is allowing people to pay their respects to their ancestors using the social media app WeChat. People can post a message on a special WeChat account, which will then be displayed on an electronic screen in front of the tomb. Beijing News commented on Tuesday:

It is customary for people to pay their respects to their ancestors on Tomb Sweeping Day in early April, and people will usually go to cemeteries and tidy the graves of their ancestors themselves. However, many people who have left their home towns find it hard to return on the day nowadays, and new ways for people to pay their respects, such as WeChat tomb sweeping, are emerging.

Society is rapidly changing, but people still want to observe the traditional customs such as tomb sweeping. This has led to customs such as tomb sweeping being revamped for the digital era.