During this Qingming holiday time of year, a kind of round green cake called "qingtuan" is very popular among people in southeast China. Li Jianhua visited one place in Shanghai that's always a hot spot for buying the rice balls.  

Looking like Haagen-Dazs ice cream balls, what you see are called "qingtuan" - a kind of sweet green rice ball. The dough is mixed with Chinese mug-wort juice, and gives off a fresh scent while the qingtuan are being made. And in this very shop alone, 200-thousand of them are made every day in the run-up to the Chinese Qingming Festival. The tradition of making "qingtuan" stretches back thousands of years in China.

ZHAO XIAOYU DEPUTY MANAGER, WANGJIASHA BAKERY SHOP "We used to have a festival called 'cold food festival' (before the Qingming festival) - people usually ate 'qingtuan' on those days. They brought the cold green rice balls to the suburbs (with their families)."

Coming out of the oven FRESH and GREEN, they're put in boxes, ready for sale. Various fillings - red bean paste, chestnut paste, and even salted egg yolk - are all very popular, especially among the elderly. It's almost noon, but still waiting outside are tons of people in a block-long queue, in what's now a yearly tradition.

 "It's very tasty, and the point of it is to honor the dead. I will bring some to (my family's) tomb as well tomorrow."

 "I buy 'qingtuan' every year - it's a tradition. And we can only eat them around this time every year. My friends abroad are all asking me to send them these green rice balls."

From morning to afternoon, the flow of people never ends. Everyone is observing the tradition.

LI JIANHUA SHANGHAI "Qingtuan is incredibly popular in southeast China. People queue for hours to get them. This is my first time to taste it. If you have a sweet tooth, it's a treat. But you may not want to eat too much, as it is very filling. LJH, CGTN, SHANGHAI."