Back Festival de la nourriture froide French Hansik ID 寒食節 Japanese 한식 (절기) Korean Hansik Malay Kaldmathøgtida NN Kaldmathøytiden NB Праздник холодной пищи Russian Svetkovina hladnog jela Serbo-Croatian Фестиваль холодної їжі Ukrainian
| Cold Food Festival | |
|---|---|
 Mount Mian in Shanxi | |
| Also called | 寒食节 Hanshi Festival (China) Hansik (South Korea) Tết Hàn Thực (Vietnam) |
| Observed by | Chinese, South Koreans, Vietnamese |
| Type | Cultural |
| Begins | 105th day after December solstice (April 4 or April 5) |
| Ends | 107th day after December solstice (April 6 or April 7) |
| Date | 106th day after December solstice (April 5 or April 6) |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Related to | Tomb Sweeping Festival |
| Cold Food Festival | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 寒食節 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 寒食节 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Cold Food Festival" | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese alphabet | Tết Hàn Thực | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Chữ Hán | 節寒食 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 한식 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 寒食 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The Cold Food or Hanshi Festival (寒食节) is a traditional Chinese holiday which developed from the local commemoration of the death of the Jin nobleman Jie Zitui in the 7th century BC under the Zhou dynasty, into an occasion across East Asia for the commemoration and veneration of ancestors by the 7th-century Tang dynasty. Its name derives from the tradition of avoiding the lighting of any kind of fire, even for the preparation of food. This practice originally occurred at midwinter for as long as a month, but the hardship this involved led to repeated attempts to ban its observance out of concern for its practitioners. By the end of the Three Kingdoms period (3rd century), it was limited to three days in the spring around the Qingming solar term. Under the Tang, ancestral observance was limited to the single day which is now the Tomb-Sweeping Festival. The Tomb-Sweeping Festival is an official holiday in several countries, and the Cold Food Festival which stretches either side of it continues to see some observance in China, South Korea, and Vietnam.