Full coverage: Chinese Qingming Festival

Chinese are celebrating a three-day holiday for the traditional Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day. It's the most important occasion to honor ancestors. This year it falls on Monday.  Qingming is the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, either the 4th or 5th April.  Traditional activities are being held nationwide.

In Deqing city of East China's Zhejiang province, is the Silkworm Flower Temple Fair.  It honors the god of silk farming, as the place is an important production base of the industry.

In Shanghai, people make a special green cake. The color comes from green leaves.  The cake is made of glutinous rice, with different fillings such as minced meat or sweetened bean paste.

In Southwest China's Guizhou province, people make similar cakes,but with no fillings. They fry the cakes rather than steam them. Locals say it's a tradition passed down for generations. They also use the cakes as sacrifices to ancestors every year at Qingming.