Water-soluble sacrifices, space-time mailboxes… Qingming Festival sweeps new winds and sends mourning
2022-03-27 10:07:57Source: Beijing Daily
Reporter Zhang Nan
This weekend, the city ushered in the first wave of ritual sweeping during the Qingming Festival. Yesterday morning, the reporter saw on the spot that the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery and the People’s Cemetery have adopted the diversion measures such as appointment and sacrifice services.
In addition to the traditional arrangement of flowers and silk flowers, citizens can also choose a variety of new ways to express their grief, such as water-soluble sacrifices, space-time mailboxes, and “silk” to express their feelings.
The festival opens at 5 o’clock, and the elderly can get a temporary number plate
At 5:36 in the morning, the staff member Zhao Fan came to Babaoshan People’s Cemetery early to take up his post. To her surprise, three families were already waiting outside the gate of the cemetery, preparing to sweep the graves of their relatives. “We usually open at 7:00, but we open the door earlier at 6:30 on peak festival days.” In order to avoid citizens waiting, the staff kindly opened the door for citizens who were waiting outside the door early in the morning.
“Open the reservation QR code and scan it in front.” Near 9 o’clock, at the west gate of the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery, the number of people who came to offer sacrifices gradually increased. Many people have prepared the QR code for the ritual scan reservation in their mobile phones in advance, and walked to the door in the order of the reservation channel. “Di”, the staff quickly released after scanning the QR code in the citizen’s mobile phone.
The reporter found after observation that the whole process of queuing up, entering the door, and scanning the code took less than 1 minute to make an appointment. “I made an appointment, why can’t I get out?” When an old man entered the door, his mobile phone “jammed” and could not enter at the door. When the staff saw this, they quickly stepped forward and taught the old man how to use the sacrificial sweeping reservation system.
It is understood that in order to facilitate the elderly to enter the park for sacrifice, the cemetery also provides on-site temporary registration services. In addition, an emergency green channel has been added to the cemetery, so that people can quickly evacuate the park in case of emergency.
Alleviating congestion revolutionary cemetery trial pedestrian and vehicle “double appointment”
How to not only meet the needs of the masses for Qingming festivals and sweeps, but also not forget the normalized epidemic prevention and control? The reporter learned that all 68 cemeteries in the city have opened the WeChat public account reservation system, and simultaneously opened the telephone reservation service, and the reservation for sacrifice sweeps is carried out at different times every day.
In order to alleviate traffic congestion, the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery also launched a new measure of “double reservation” for personnel and vehicles this year.
Dai Lei, spokesman for the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, introduced that for those who drive to the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery for sacrifice sweeping, in addition to making an appointment for the sacrifice sweeper, they also need to make an appointment for the vehicle for the first time. Only after the reservation is made, people and cars can enter the park. After logging in to the WeChat official account of “Beijing Social Construction and Civil Affairs”, the reporter saw on the “Tomb Sweeping Appointment” page that when making an online appointment for a sacrifice sweeping, if you need to drive yourself, in addition to entering the appointment person’s name, ID number and other information, you must also Enter the license plate number.
Use a rag to wipe off the floating soil on the tombstone, gently brush the stains on the tombstone with a small brush dipped in water, and finally gently place 3 white chrysanthemums in front of the wiped tomb… If you can’t sweep the tomb in person, the cemetery also specially launched a representative. offering services. In addition to online reservations, telephone reservations and other channels, Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery and People’s Cemetery both provide free sacrifice services. Since the epidemic, the number of citizens who have made reservations for worship services has increased significantly.
“One-stop” service first set up “50-meter service circle” and “shared bucket” for nearby access
Along the one-way line, driving all the way into the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, the reporter noticed that, with the central square of the cemetery as the dot, a more convenient one-stop “50-meter service circle” was created for the first time.
Get off the car in the parking lot and look around, you can find various outlets such as business services, columbarium services, cemetery services, and convenience and benefit services; walk a few steps south, and there are flowers, silk flowers and other sacrificial cleaning supplies. The stall appeared in front of you; on the roadside not far away, there were also neatly placed public sacrifice buckets and other items.
“Within the scope of the ’50-meter service circle’, it can meet all the family’s service needs for sacrifice and sweeping, truly making it convenient for the people and benefiting the people, and allowing the family to run less errands.” Dai Lei said.
At 9 a.m., people carrying buckets and towels can be seen everywhere in the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery. “In previous years’ work, it was found that the free buckets, cleaning brushes, towels and other sacrificial sweeping items provided in the cemetery are the most used.” Zhao Fan, a staff member of Babaoshan People’s Cemetery, told reporters, but for a long time, these sacrificial sweepers have been placed in the cemetery. The public bucket racks for items are concentrated in the Ximen Square, which has the largest flow of people. Taking into account the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, in order to prevent crowds from gathering and gathering, the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery has specially adjusted the placement of the bucket racks for the convenience of the people during this year’s Qingming Festival.
The rows of shared bucket racks that were originally piled up on Ximen Square have now been dismantled, and 15 shared bucket racks are scattered at various points throughout the cemetery. The reporter noticed that on the location guide map posted on the roadside of the cemetery, the detailed locations of the nearby bucket racks were clearly marked with red dots, so that the citizens could use them nearby. Not only that, five drinking water points have been set up in the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery to guide citizens to drink water in a dispersed manner.
New Ways of Sacrificial Sweeping
The reporter noticed that most of the citizens who came to sweep the graves chose to buy flowers and other offerings to comfort the deceased. Without burning paper or incense, there are also many new ways of offering sacrifices to express condolences.
In front of the columbarium of Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, there is an exquisite small pool with artificial lotus floating on the water, rockery and stone lanterns arranged in the water, which has attracted the attention of many worshippers.
“This is the ‘water soluble sacrifice’ service we specially launched during this year’s Qingming Festival, using water as a medium to express our condolences.” The staff showed reporters a stack of paintings with baskets full of fruits, abundant grains, magnificent mountains and rivers, and fire. According to legend, there are 7 kinds of thin letterheads with different exquisite patterns.
The reporter used a signature pen to write his thoughts and messages to his relatives on the letterhead made of special water-soluble paper, and gently put it into the pool. With the swaying of the water ripples, the letterhead with the condolences gradually melted in a few seconds. , and finally dissolves into water and becomes invisible.
Burning paper and incense is not only easy to bring fire hazards, but also causes air pollution, and the way of water sacrifice can effectively avoid safety hazards and environmental pollution. The reporter learned that the water-soluble letterhead is made of food-grade materials such as wood pulp. After being put into water, it can be dissolved and decomposed within one minute, and will not cause pollution to the environment.
A huge letter box is also eye-catching by the pool of the water-soluble sacrifice. The staff told reporters that this is the “Time and Space Message” mailbox launched on Qingming Festival this year. Citizens can write down their own messages to their deceased relatives, put them into the mailbox, and use the way of time dialogue to express their thoughts.
In addition, the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery has also launched the “Silk Remembrance” activity. Family members can write their thoughts about their loved ones on the message card, and use the yellow ribbon to tie the message card to the ashes wall to express their wish for blessing.