Ching Ming, Qingming, the Remembrance of Ancestors Day or Grave-Sweeping Day takes place on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox. This means it usually takes place on April 4th or April 5th in the western calendar. The date of the festival is indicated on the Chinese calendar by the two characters: ching, meaning pure or clean, and ming, meaning brightness. Combined together, Ching Ming means clean and just.
Ching Ming rituals not only include weeding of the area, cleaning of the headstone, and replacing the wilted flowers with fresh ones, but also the lighting of incense and burning of imitation paper money. The burning of the imitation money is for the deceased to use in the afterlife.
The imitations burnt are no longer limited to just money. In recent years, the burning of paper imitations of a wide variety of consumer goods has become popular. This includes all manner of objects, such as iPhones, designer handbags, houses and sports cars. In addition, food is laid out in front of the headstone as an offering to the spirits of the deceased.
Today, the responsibility to hang san or ’walk the mountain’ as visiting the cemetery is commonly known, still falls to the eldest son. Today families may be more likely to prefer simplified offerings of only the incense, paper money and flowers.
Irony…
From a Dutch newspaper…
On the left – “Man inserts large eggplant into anus to cure his constipation”
Today is Malvinas Day, a public holiday in Argentina. It is officially called Day of the War Veterans and the Fallen in the Malvinas Islands (Día del Veterano de Guerra y los Caídos en las Islas Malvinas).
The Malvinas Islands are probably better known in the English-speaking world by their British name, the Falklands. The holiday is a tribute to Argentina’s fallen soldiers in the Falklands War, which began with the Argentine occupation of the Islands on April 2nd 1982.
Some April 1 ads…
Thanks B&P!
Today is the birthday, in 1947, of American singer, songwriter and musician Emmylou Harris. She has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honours, including induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has worked with numerous leading artists, including Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, John Denver, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, The Band, Mark Knopfler, Albert Lee, Delbert McClinton, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Steve Earle and Ryan Adams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1lQOnqIECI
Today is, of course, April Fools’ Day, an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting “April Fools!” at the recipient.
A disputed association between 1 April and foolishness is in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1392). In the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale”, a vain cock, Chauntecleer, is tricked by a fox “Since March began, full thirty days and two,” i.e. the 32nd day from 1 March, which is 1 April.
In 1508, French poet Eloy d’Amerval referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally “April’s fish”), possibly the first reference to the celebration in France.
As well as people playing pranks on one another on April Fools’ Day, elaborate pranks have appeared on radio and television stations, newspapers, and websites, and have been performed by large corporations. In one famous prank in 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their Panorama current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti, in what they called the Swiss spaghetti harvest. The BBC was soon flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day.
Innocent double entendre
Bada BING!!!!
At the pharmacy…Are there any side effects to these pills besides bankruptcy?
Is the new “American Dream” watching Elon Musk go bankrupt, broke, and get deported?
You know you’re getting old when your vehicle’s heated seat is no longer for warmth… but instead for back pain.
Last one out the door at the Department of Education should erase the entire student loan database. Be a legend.
That awkward moment when you lay on the floor to do a sit-up but realize you can’t do a sit up and now you can’t get up either.
I don’t understand why people have to “get ready” for bed. I am ALWAYS ready for bed.
Donald Jr.: born 1977. Ivanka: born 1981. Eric: born 1984. Their mother Ivana didn’t become a U.S. citizen until 1988. If birthright citizenship gets revoked and kids start being deported, put them at the front of the line.
The billionaires have decided that the people with nothing have too much.
Instead of older and wiser, I’m getting older and wider.
People are now referring to Pete Hegseth as “WhiskeyLeaks” and I’m kinda mad that I didn’t think of it first.
This Pete Hegseth group chat story blew up like it was a Tesla.
Pete Hegseth now has to blow into a breathalyzer to unlock his phone.
Joe Rogan says he would rather go to Russia than Canada and I agree, I would also rather Joe Rogan go to Russia.
I’m a trust fund baby. My parents trusted me to fund myself.
A penny for your thoughts. Although that does seem a little pricey.
Of the states with the highest sex crimes against children per capita, seven of the top ten voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. Because representation matters.
Heads up: losing your Social Security will sting way more than paying extra for eggs.
On this day in 1984, Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father at his parent’s home in Los Angeles, California. The argument started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents, Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun he had given him four months before. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC5PL0XImjw
Today is Transfer Day, a public holiday in the US Virgin Islands. The holiday commemorates this day in 1917 when Denmark ceded the islands to the United States in exchange for $25 million in gold. The U.S. interest in the islands primarily was their strategic location to improve military positioning during World War I. Later, the islands were a foothold in the Caribbean for the U.S. Navy in World War II. As a part of the same treaty, the United States recognized Denmark’s control over Greenland.
Many Caribbean islands have switched hands many time as a result of wars between the colonizing countries. The island of Tobago changed owners 62 times, switching between Spanish, Dutch, French, British, Swedish and even German/Prussia ownership.
After the original Spanish settlement on the islands in 1555, there followed a complex period in which the islands were disputed among Spain, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Denmark–Norway also took an interest in the islands, and the Danish West India Company settled on St. Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1694, later buying St. Croix from France in 1733. The islands became royal Danish colonies in 1754, named the Danish West Indian Islands (Danish: De dansk-vestindiske øer).
Not sure of the breed…
Rapunzel
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Swedish drummer Roger Palm. Working as a session musician he appeared on such noteworthy ABBA songs as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Thank You For The Music’ and ‘Take A Chance On Me’. During the 70s he was a member of Swedish bands the Gimmicks and then the Beatmakers, and started working on the session circuit in 1970. He died on 21 Sept 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crgQGdpZR0
Today is Ragnar Lodbrok’s Day. Ragnar Lodbrok according to legends, was a Viking hero and a Swedish and Danish king.
He is known from Old Norse poetry of the Viking Age, Icelandic sagas, and near-contemporary chronicles. According to traditional literature, Ragnar distinguished himself by conducting many raids against the British Isles and the Carolingian Empire during the 9th century. He also appears in Norse legends, and according to the legendary sagas Tale of Ragnar’s Sons and a Saga about Certain Ancient Kings, Ragnar Lodbrok’s father has been given as the legendary king of the Swedes, Sigurd Ring.
Around this day in 845, a Viking invasion of France culminated in the siege and capture of Paris. The Viking forces were led by a Norse chieftain named “Reginherus”, or Ragnar, who tentatively has been identified with the legendary saga character Ragnar Lodbrok. Reginherus’s fleet of 120 Viking ships, carrying thousands of warriors, entered the Seine in March and sailed up the river.They withdrew after Charles the Bald paid a ransom of 7,000 French livres [2,570 kg (83,000 ozt)] in gold and silver.
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