Clear and Bright

Meaning

Clear and Bright, Qingming, is the fifth of the twenty-four solar terms: the Sun at 15°, about 5 April. The name describes the air of mid-spring in northern China, washed clear, and the countryside turning green; it is the time to plant and to go out into the fields.

It is the only solar term that is also a great festival. On Qingming families visit their ancestors’ graves, sweep and tidy them, bring flowers and food, and then often stay for an outing in the new green, “treading the green”, flying kites or setting willow twigs over the door. In mainland China it has been a public holiday since 2008.

It is an opening term: it opens the Dragon month, the third solar month. Its three pentads are the paulownia trees in flower, the field mouse giving way to the quail, and the first rainbow of the year.

In practice

• In BaZi a birth from this instant belongs to the Dragon month and its pillar; a birth within five minutes of it is marked uncertain, since a slightly different time would give the Rabbit month.
• In Chinese astrology the month animal turns from the Rabbit to the Dragon, and the Cycles lens begins the Dragon month’s reading here.
• In Feng Shui the month’s star changes, one less than the Rabbit month’s.
• The Calendar marks it on its day, with the Sun at 15° Aries, as the opening of the Dragon month; the festival is kept on the day the term falls, by the calendar of China.

Across traditions

• In Korea the Cold Food day, hansik, and cheongmyeong are the time of rites at the family tombs; in Vietnam Tết Thanh minh brings families to clean their graves together.
• In Okinawa Shīmī, from the same characters, gathers families for a meal before their ancestors’ tomb, the one place in Japan where the festival is kept as in China.
• In Western astrology the Sun is at 15° Aries, the heart of the first spring sign, in the weeks when Easter and Passover often fall.

Origin and history

As a term of the calendar, Qingming is in the Huainanzi’s list of 139 BC, with the paulownia, the quail and the rainbow from the old seasonal instructions. As a festival it absorbed an older one, the Cold Food days just before, when no fire was lit, kept in memory of the loyal Jie Zitui; by the Tang dynasty the two had merged, and the visit to the graves had become the heart of the day.

Meng Yuanlao describes Song dynasty Kaifeng on Qingming, the city emptying towards the tombs and the countryside, the gardens full and the roads crowded until evening. Zhang Zeduan’s great scroll of the same century, Along the River During the Qingming Festival, shows the life of the capital; whether its title names the festival or simply a time of peace and order is still debated.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune takes Clear and Bright as the instant the Sun’s apparent longitude reaches 15°, from its table of the solar terms computed with the Swiss Ephemeris for 1800 to 2200. The Dragon month and its pillar begin at that instant, whatever the clock or the time zone. In 2026 it fell on 4 April at 18:39 UT, already 5 April in China.

Correspondences