Cold Food Festival

Every spring, just before the arrival of the better-known Qingming Festival, parts of China once observed a strange and austere tradition where all fires were extinguished, even in the kitchen, and people ate cold food. Families shivered through the lingering chill of early spring while honouring a man who, according to legend, died in flames rather than betray his principles.

This was the Cold Food Festival, or Hanshi Jie, one of China’s oldest traditional observances. Though now largely absorbed into the Qingming Festival, the Cold Food Festival endured for centuries as a solemn commemoration of loyalty, sacrifice, and remembrance. Its customs ranged from ancestor worship and tomb sweeping to the peculiar requirement that all food be consumed cold.

Rice cakes known as “Bánh trôi nước” are staple during the Cold Food Festival. Credit: Việt Hùng Cao

The origins of the festival are traditionally traced to the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history, around the 7th century BCE. The central figure, Jie Zitui, served Prince Chong’er of the state of Jin. The prince, later known as Duke Wen of Jin, spent years in exile while rival factions struggled for power.

According to legend, Chong’er’s years of wandering were filled with hardship and hunger. During one desperate moment, when the prince was said to be starving, Jie Zitui secretly cut flesh from his own thigh and prepared it as soup to keep his master alive.

Eventually Chong’er regained power and became ruler of Jin. In the celebrations and rewards that followed, however, Jie Zitui was overlooked. Rather than complain or seek recognition, he quietly withdrew with his elderly mother into the forests of Mount Mian. Only later did the duke realize the omission and attempt to summon his faithful retainer back to court, but Jie refused. Some versions say he wished to avoid corruption and political ambition. Others portray him as deeply disappointed by the duke’s ingratitude.

Unable to persuade him to emerge and annoyed by Jie’s disobedience, the duke ordered his soldiers to set the forest on fire so that Jie and his mother would be forced out. Instead of leaving, Jie choose to perish with the flames. After the fire subsided, Jie’s charred corpse was found still standing and tightly holding on a tree.

Duke Wen of Jin’s men lit a forest fire on one side of Mt Mian to drive out Jie Zhitui. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Overcome with guilt, Duke Wen supposedly decreed that no fires should be lit on the anniversary of Jie’s death. People were to eat only cold food in his memory. From this act of mourning emerged the Cold Food Festival.

The Cold Food Festival is first mentioned in Huan Tan's New Discussions, composed around the beginning of the 1st century. It records that the commoners of Taiyuan Commandery avoided using fire in preparing their food for five days around midwinter, upholding this taboo even when they are gravely ill. Many of the old and young died every year because of the hardship this brought. The magistrate Zhou Ju admonished the people for a tradition that harmed so many that it could not have been what Jie intended. But still the tradition continued.

At some point over the next century, the tradition moved from the middle of winter to late spring, 105 days after the Winter Solstice. In 206, the warlord Cao Cao attempted to outlaw the Cold Food Festival imposing strict punishments for those found following the tradition. The punishment was limited not only to the family defying the ban but also to the local official and even the magistrate.

Even these measures failed to stop the festival, with reports of families practicing it for up to a month in the mid-3rd century. By the time of Jia Sixie, in the 6^th century, the duration of the festival had reduced to a day, and moved to the day before the Qingming solar term. During the Tang Dynasty, the festival again grew to three days and began to incorporate ancestral veneration.

The festival was celebrated with people eating food prepared in advance, such as cold porridge and cakes, that could be eaten without reheating. In some areas special cold pastries became associated with the occasion. The festival gradually acquired additional customs as well. Families visited ancestral graves, offered sacrifices, cleaned tombs, and made spring outings into the countryside.

Over time, the Cold Food Festival became closely linked with the solar term known as Qingming, meaning “clear and bright.” Qingming marked the warming of spring, the greening of the countryside, and the beginning of the agricultural season.

The two observances eventually merged in popular practice. Tomb sweeping, once associated strongly with Hanshi, became one of Qingming’s central rituals. As the fire prohibition gradually weakened and disappeared, the more practical and celebratory elements survived under the Qingming name.

Today, the ancient Cold Food Festival is largely remembered through its connection to the modern Qingming Festival, also known in English as Tomb-Sweeping Day. Yet traces of Hanshi remain embedded within Qingming customs and literature.