Despite its ancient roots, Qingming was not an official public holiday in mainland China for most of the twentieth century: the People's Republic, in the decades following 1949, did not include it among the state's designated holidays, and traditional ancestor-focused observances were actively discouraged for periods under policies aimed at reducing what the state regarded as feudal or superstitious practice, so the tomb-sweeping visit continued, where it continued at all on the mainland, as an unofficial family custom rather than a day off recognised by the government.
The Chinese government restored Qingming as an official public holiday only in 2008, alongside the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival, part of a broader policy shift that reintroduced a number of traditional festivals into the state calendar after decades of downplaying them, a change that gave millions of people paid time off specifically to travel and tend family graves for the first time in generations and that is widely read as part of a wider, ongoing state re-engagement with traditional Chinese culture rather than a simple administrative scheduling decision.
A further folk custom tied to the day, older than the tomb-sweeping visits themselves, is the wearing or hanging of willow branches: people traditionally inserted fresh willow twigs into their hair, doorways or gates on Qingming, a practice explained variously as a protection against wandering spirits believed to be especially active at this turning of the season and as a simple welcome of the new spring greenery, a custom still kept in some rural areas alongside the grave-tending that now dominates the day's observance.