In springtime in Jiangnan,a series of rituals and festivities will start as silkworm farmers begin to prepare for the start of their annual work.Silkworm farmers and their family members from the north of Zhejiang and the south of Jiangsu flock to the West Lake in Hangzhou and visit all temples there,even including the City God Temple and General Yue Fei's Memorial Temple. The springtime pilgrimage to Hangzhou is of course supposed to seek blessings from heaven.

In Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou Plain where sericulture thrives, silkworm farmers celebrate the Qingming Festival as if it were Spring Festival.Some even go so far as to say that some silkworm farmers even consider the Qingming Festival more important than the Spring Festival. The festivities for the Qingming Festival start on the Cold Food Festival, four days before the Qingming Festival in early April. To entertain visiting relatives and friends, families make Zongzi,a rice dumpling(a pyramid-shaped  mass of rice glutinous rice and stuffing wrapped in bamboo leaves).

One day before the Qingming Festival,a set of rituals is held to exorcize evils and vermin that might damage silkworm farming.The rituals are supposed to keep silkworm rooms free of bad things.

Around the Qingming Festival, silkworm farmers go to local temples to pray for blessings from Goddess of Silkworm. The best known celebration centers around Hanshan, a hill on the border between Huzhou and Tongxiang. Local legends have it that the goddess disguises herself as an ordinary village woman and visits Hanshan, leaving footprints which emit the aura of good luck all over Hanshan. Attracted by this belief, silkworm farmers flock to Hanshan. They walk all over the hill, to get the aura from the footprints left by the goddess.

The crowd is the biggest on the da of Qingming. Residents from all over the region gather there. The large gathering is also a fashion show for wives. They wear best silk garments and jewelry to show off how their husbands love them. For young women who are not yet married, it is also a day to find young men they want to date. On the day, women wear a silk or paper flower in their heads. The flower is called Silkworm Flower. These women, married or single, may be thrifty about other things, but they never hesitate to open their purses to buy a good handmade flower and wear it in a showy manner on their heads.

An ancient canal by Hanshan gives an opportunity for big boats moored there to form a performance stage of all sizes. People perform Kungfu and stage acrobatic shows on boats. Boat races on the canal draw large crowd of spectators. They excitedly cheer the competitors from the canal banks.The atmosphere is electrifying.

In Tongxiang, Dragon Silkworm Festival attracts large groups of visitors. The spectacle is all the hustle and bustle in Hanshan.A statue of Silkworm Goddess is placed on a platform consisted of two boats roped together.Silkworm farmers from all over the region come to pray to the goddess.After theceremony,the statue is carried back to the Dragon Silkworm Temple. Then boat showsbegin and last about three to five days.

The Qingming Boat Show in Jiaxing features a special celebration. A village sends one boat out to participate in the show. All these boat shows are about silkworm farming and rice farming.Actors who are men can dress up like a woman featuring a silk flower in the head.They pray to the god of mulberry tree leaves and seek a divination on the prices of mulberry leaves.Some performers put on a show illustrating the whole process of silkworm farming. They seek a divination about whether the raw silk they reel from cocoons can sell a good price this year.Some people are dressed up like rice farmers imitating the manner of working in rice paddies for a divination about a bumper harvest. Kungfu performances are also part of the boat shows on the Qingming Festival.

The Duanwu Festival on May 5th on the lunar calendar is largely ignored in the sericulture region in the north of the province as silkworm farmers don’t have time for the Duanwu festivities. That is why they organize their boat races around the Qingming Festival.