Traditionally, Chinese mourn their dead on tomb-sweeping day – Qingmingjie – in early April, but many migrants who work far from their hometowns don’t have time to get back home even with the three-day national holiday. That reality has triggered new commercial services, where people can hire strangers to sweep tombs on their behalf and watch the service via live streaming. Some said this is a good thing in terms of preserving the tradition, but others argued the commercialization of tomb-sweeping does not honor one's ancestors.
Gao Wei, a folklore expert at the China Folklore Society, praised the innovation, since the new tomb-sweeping service presses traditional funerary and interment customs to reform. “The development of folklore should keep apace with social development,” Gao added.
This service is nothing more than a live show, countered Hunan Province’s news site www.rednet.cn and Cao Ruixiao, a commentator at the Hubei-based news portal www.cnhubei.com, also stressed that it is not meaningful nor sincere to show filial piety in this way, and that for the sweepers, it is simply a way to make a profit.
Emphasis was put on the fact that these commercial tomb-sweeping services do meet the needs of a large number of young people working or living in other cities, said Ran Yu, a media commentator and writer. In terms of accepting the new twist on folklore, there must be a process before recognizing it as the mainstream, meaning that at present it is too early to judge this activity.
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