Radio Taiwan International
Date: 04 March, 2020
By: John Van Trieste

The Tomb Sweeping Festival in the early spring is the time of year when families traditionally gather to remember departed ancestors and tidy up their graves. But this year, the threat of COVID-19 means that some of these tomb sweeping events may have to be postponed or cancelled altogether.

One especially big family, famed for the size of its annual tomb sweeping event, is now debating whether to go ahead with this year’s gathering.

If you think your family reunions are big, chances are you’ve never heard of the Yeh’s. This clan descends from Yeh Chun-jih, a man who migrated to Taiwan in 1735. From him has grown a massive, complex family tree with branches in every corner of the world.

Each year during the Tomb Sweeping Festival, as many as 10,000 members of this vast lineage converge in Taoyuan in northwestern Taiwan, the ancestral home where it all started. There, they honor the many other Yeh’s who have gone before them.    [FULL  STORY]