People across China marked the Qingming Festival on Friday by preparing and enjoying traditional snacks made from seasonal ingredients, reflecting the cultural significance of this time-honored tradition.
The Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, is traditionally a time for honoring ancestors. This year, the holiday runs from April 4 to 6.
Qingming baba, a seasonal delicacy from Sinan County in southwest China's Guizhou Province, is a traditional snack enjoyed during the Qingming Festival. Made by blending green extracts from Qingming grass with glutinous rice flour, the mixture is shaped into rice balls and filled with various ingredients, often including local wild vegetables. Once steamed, Qingming baba becomes soft, chewy, and delightfully aromatic.
"The rice balls have various fillings, such as Chinese toon with eggs, houttuynia with cured meat, tofu with cured meat, peanuts with sesame, red beans, and salted vegetables with minced meat. These are common local ingredient combinations. We want to offer a completely new taste experience for our customers," said Fang Li, manager of an agritainment in Sinan.
In northwest China's Qinghai Province, Qingming sweet snacks made with wormwood extracts are a festive favorite. The crushed wormwood imparts a vibrant green color and a distinctive fragrance to the treats, which are often filled with highland barley, taro paste, or bean paste. Meanwhile, Qinghai locals have put a creative twist on their traditional flower buns, preserving classic floral patterns while introducing imaginative shapes, including flower baskets and ice cream cones.
China celebrates Qingming Festival with seasonal delicacies, time-honored customs
The "soft landing" of the China-EU electric vehicle case will greatly boost market confidence and inject new momentum into China-EU cooperation in automobile trade and investment, a spokeswoman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said at a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
He Yongqian, the spokeswoman, made the remarks after China and the European Union (EU) agreed on the necessity of providing general guidance on price undertakings for Chinese companies exporting battery electric vehicle (BEV) passenger cars to the EU.
"China and the EU simultaneously announced on Monday that they had achieved positive outcomes following multiple rounds of consultations on the EV case, a development that has drawn wide attention at home and abroad. Industry players from both sides have 'highly welcomed and fully endorsed' the outcome, saying the 'soft landing' of the case is expected to greatly boost market confidence and inject new momentum into China-EU cooperation in automobile trade and investment. Some EU politicians have described it as a positive step toward building a sustainable China-EU trade relationship, and said it demonstrated that resolving trade differences through partnership remains feasible," she said.
"Against the current international backdrop, China and the EU, acting in a spirit of mutual respect and within the framework of WTO rules, have properly addressed the EV case, which is of significant positive importance. The outcome will not only contribute to the sound development of China-EU economic and trade ties and help safeguard the stability of the global automotive industrial and supply chains, but will also send a clear and strong signal that both sides are willing to uphold a rules-based international trading order, setting a good example for countries to resolve differences through dialogue and consultation and injecting greater certainty and positive energy into global economic growth," she said.
"China appreciates the spirit of dialogue showed by the EU side and stands ready to work with the EU, building on the current positive outcomes, to further implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two sides, maintain dialogue and communication, and support stable industrial and supply chains on both sides, continue to deepen cooperation on the basis of market principles, and make active contributions to the global green transition," she added.
"Soft landing" of China-EU EV case to significantly boost market confidence: MOC spokeswoman
"Soft landing" of China-EU EV case to significantly boost market confidence: MOC spokeswoman
