Abstract: Current study on the Tomb-sweeping Festival mainly focuses on the trajectory of the festival as well as its cultural connotation and function, and the relationship between the festival practices and its social context in a dynamical historical process has been ignored. By studying the practices at Tomb-sweeping Festival in Shanghai in the context of a modern urban society, this paper finds that the customs of Tomb-sweeping Festival in Shanghai are maintained and meanwhile transformed. What is maintained is to express longing and concerns to lost family members at a certain time and what is transformed is the practical forms. With the changes of practical forms, the Tomb-sweeping Festival, which is originally suitable to the agricultural civilization, gradually transforms to a festival suitable to the modern urban civilization. The sacrificial practices of the Tomb-sweeping Festival are gradually intermingled with the urban civilization.