When Feng Shui Master, Lillian Too, sends out her weekly email a day early with a heads up for Hungry Ghost month, I listen. Yesterday was the first day of a solemn month-long occasion observed by many Asian cultures. It seems to be different in different Asian cultures (The Japanese version is by far the grimmest) but my understanding from my Taiwanese co-worker, Mike, is that this is the time the deceased ancestors come back from “the other side” to visit the earth. However, this is not a light hearted event at all. These ghosts are thought to play mean tricks on the humans and sometimes hurt them or even (gulp) cause their deaths. When I heard this, I thought, “What? What kind of scary after life belief is this? We are doomed to accidents and unpleasant happenings for a whole month? Oh great.”
Thankfully, there are ways to keep these ghosts appeased. Unfortunately offerings of food and water do no good. They cannot eat or drink. But apparently they can be satisfied by smoke, so the tradition is to burn incense and other paper items for them. The paper items are often in shapes of items they can use in the afterlife. I went to Chinatown today to find some of these paper items to burn and found a store full of stuff – they had tons of paper money, paper clothes, paper mahjong tiles, paper cigarettes, paper credit cards and even paper cell phones – all for burning to keep the Hungry Ghosts at bay.
While shopping for my paper offerings, a friendly Chinese man stopped and asked me if I knew what all the paper products were for. I told him it was for the Hungry Ghosts. He then told me that he doesn’t believe in the ghosts, BUT just to be sure, he’s extra careful during this time. He told me to look both ways before crossing the street and to slow down and be careful. I thanked him and I told him I would for sure.
There are lots of versions of this observance and I think I’ll see what else I can find out about it. This is the second most observed ritual in China – second only to the Chinese New Year. It’s like Day of the Dead in Mexico, but without the making of fun of the dead part. And also the Egyptian afterlife. But these ghosts have no sense of humour, unfortunately.
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Fascinating! YOU are just a wealth of knowledge!
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