Society

Chinese pay respects to Yellow Emperor

By Ma Lie and Zhou Siyu (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-06 07:54

HUANGLING, Shaanxi - More than 10,000 people gathered on Tuesday to pay their respects to the emperor believed to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese.

They came from around the world for the grand annual ceremony held at the Mausoleum of Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor, who is recognized as the legendary first sovereign of China.

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The yearly gathering at the mausoleum on Qiaoshan Mountain in Yan'an city, northwestern Shaanxi province, coincides with the Tomb-Sweeping Festival.

Zhao Zhengyong, governor of Shaanxi province, read the elegiac address in which he said that reunification of the Chinese nation is a hope for Chinese all over the world.

Kuomintang Honorary Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung and his wife also attended the ceremony, and planted an evergreen tree on Qiaoshan Mountain before the ceremony.

Before leaving Taiwan for the ceremony, Wu told local media on March 28 that cross-Straits peace and development should be cherished, according to chinanews.com.

Huangdi, a great tribal chief of China's prehistory, has been credited with the invention of carts, boats, bows and arrows, and traditional Chinese medicine. One of his imperial historians is believed to have created Chinese pictographs.

On this year's Tomb-Sweeping Day, many Chinese both home and abroad showed their respects to Huangdi on a special website, huangdi.cnwest.com, where they stressed their hope for prosperity and reunification of the Chinese nation.