About 5,000 Chinese from home and overseas gathered yesterday morning in front of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum to pay respect to the ancestor of the Chinese nation.

April 5, the date of the tomb-sweeping, or Qingming Festival, is a traditional day for Chinese to pay homage to their ancestors and late relatives and to sweep their graves. Every year a grand ceremony at the mausoleum in Huangling, Shaanxi Province, honors the Yellow Emperor, the legendary ancestor of the nation.

Yesterday's ceremony was held in front of the newly completed sacrificial offering hall, which was built of huge granite in traditional Chinese style, vividly reflecting the culture and civilization of centuries ago.

And two traditional sacrificial offering wares, a huge bronze bell and a huge drum, both more than 3 meters tall, were also used in the ceremony for the first time.

Chen Deming, governor of Shaanxi Province, said at the ceremony that realizing the reunification of the motherland is the best way to cherish the Yellow Emperor's memory, and building a peaceful and prosperous nation is a hope shared by all Chinese in the world.

The Yellow Emperor, a great tribal chief towards the end of primitive China, was honored as the ancestor who helped greatly bring Chinese civilization into being.

The inventions of, among others, the cart, the boat, the bow and arrow, and Chinese medicine are attributed to him. One of his imperial historians is believed to have created Chinese pictography.

Those achievements were indispensable to the later success of China as one of the world's four great ancient civilizations.

The public memorial ceremony, held annually on the Qingming Festival in front of the mausoleum, started as early as in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and the sacrificial offering activity became a national rite from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) till today.

To better protect the mausoleum, a fund was established in Beijing in 1992 to collect money from all over the world to renovate the mausoleum.

Donations totaling 130 million yuan (US$15.7 million) have been raised from the central and local governments, as well as from companies and individuals both home and abroad.

On Tuesday, donations of 9.25 million yuan (US$1.14 million) more for the renovation project were received by the fund, according to Sun Tianyi, the fund's director.

(China Daily April 6, 2006)