There are currently seven official public holidays on Mainland China. Each year's holidays are announced about three weeks before the start of the year by the General Office of the State Council. A notable feature of mainland Chinese holidays is that weekends are usually swapped with the weekdays next to the actual holiday to create a longer holiday period.
Chinese National Day in 2004 at Beihai Park, Beijing
The Qingming Festival or Ching Ming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day in English, is a traditional Chinese festival observed by ethnic Chinese in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. A celebration of spring, it falls on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. This makes it the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either 4, 5 or 6 April in a given year. During Qingming, Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to their ancestors. Offerings would typically include traditional food dishes and the burning of joss sticks and joss paper. The holiday recognizes the traditional reverence of one's ancestors in Chinese culture.
An Indonesian Chinese family pray for their deceased members at Qingming Festival of 2013 under the Heaven Gate of Sanggar Agung
Qingming at the cemetery by Kolkata Chinese
Colored papers placed on a grave during Qingming Festival, Bukit Brown Cemetery, Singapore
A small section of Along the River During the Qingming Festival