Virtual tomb-sweeping keeps a Chinese tradition alive

After watching Coco , the Disney-Pixar film that depicts the Day of the Dead festival in Mexico, Zhang Xin was inspired to do something to help people in China pay their respects to deceased loved ones — online.

Zhang, a software developer in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, is the creator of Wangshang Mianhui (“online remembrance”), a virtual-tomb sweeping service.

Tomb sweeping is a Chinese tradition where people clean ancestors’ graves, present flowers and food, and burn paper money for the deceased to use in the afterlife. But as millions of Chinese have moved away from their hometowns to bigger cities for better economic prospects, physically sweeping ancestral tombs has become a challenge. Virtual-tomb sweeping websites allow migrants to pay their respects from afar.

Zhang and his team launched Wangshang Mianhui in 2021, after noticing a shortage of mobile-friendly online gravesites. The platform can be accessed through the messaging app WeChat. Users can create memorials for their loved ones, upload photos and videos, and present digital offerings like food, incense, or flowers. “We want to create spaces of memories,” Zhang told Rest of World . “It’s a place for people to express their emotions.”

Virtual-tomb sweeping programs surged in popularity because of travel restrictions during the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of users have visited Zhang’s platform since 2021, and more than 50,000 memorials have been created. The site profits from the virtual offerings that typically cost less than a dollar each. Some users have messaged the team requesting specific Chinese dishes to be added as offerings because their late relatives used to like the food, Zhang said.

In April 2022, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said China had 2,304 online-tomb sweeping platforms. Around 7 million used them on the first day of the Qingming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day) that year, a 276% increase from 2021.

The Chinese government places tight controls over religious institutions because it fears they could pose a threat to the official atheist ideology. Folk spiritual practices, such as fortune-telling or burning incense for the dead, however, are common.

Local governments have set up virtual memorials for Communist martyrs who died for the country. March Xu, 19, a university student in Jiangsu province, was recently told by her school to visit a virtual memorial. Her avatar delivered flowers and bowed to the martyrs. “It was very convenient, but I didn’t get the same kind of serious, heavy feelings as I did visiting a real-world one,” Xu told Rest of World .

For private businesses, running virtual tombs can be risky. State media outlets have criticized online gravesites for allowing users to create tombs for living people without their consent and for pushing high-priced extravagant virtual offerings like luxury watches and private jets. To encourage spending, some services rank users according to how much they give to the dead. In April 2023, the government banned online tomb sites from having “high service fees” and spreading “superstitious” messages. Also, users must now register with their real names.

Zhang said user growth had slowed after Covid-19 travel restrictions were lifted. Most current users are middle-aged people who live in the bigger cities. Some are located in Singapore, Canada, and the U.S. This year, he added a chatbot function to the site, allowing people to speak to an AI-powered bot that spoke on behalf of their dead family members .

Zhang, who migrated to Wuhan from a small town, has set up virtual tombs for some of his late relatives. “When I see other families get together, I would get on the platform to express my own feelings,” he said. “Without this, I would be speaking only to myself or into the air.” ▰

Viola Zhou is a reporter for Rest of World covering China's tech scene. She is based in New York City.