Zhong Yuan Festival,Offering Sacrificesto Ghosts
2 min readThe Ghost Festival,also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival,is atraditional Chinese festival and holiday celebrated by Chinese in manycountries.In the Chinese calendar,the Ghost Festival is on the 15thnight of the seventh lunar month(14th in southern China).
In Chinese tradition,the fifteenth day of the seventh month in thelunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in generalis regarded as the Ghost Month ,in which ghosts and spirits,including those of thedeceased ancestors,come out from the lower realm.Distinct from both the Qingming Festival(inSpring)and Chung Yeung Festival(in Autumn)in which living descendants pay homage to theirdeceased ancestors,on the Ghost Day,the deceased are believed to visit the living.
On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are openand both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferingsof the deceased.Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship,where traditionally the filialpiety of the descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.Activities during themonth would include preparing ritualistic food offerings,burning incense,and burning josspaper,a papier-mache form of material items such as clothes,gold and other fine goods for thevisiting spirits of the ancestors.Elaborate meals(often vegetarian meals)would be served withempty seats for each of the deceased in the family,treating the deceased as if they are still living.Ancestor worship is what distinguishes Qingming Festival from Ghost Festival because the latterincludes paying respects to all deceased,including the same and younger generations,whilethe former only includes older generations.Other festivities may include buying and releasingminiature paper boats and lanterns on water,which signifies giving directions to the lost ghostsand spirits of the ancestors and other deities.
