Hungry Hungry Ghosts – Celebrating The Chinese Halloween

There is no Halloween in China, complained one recent traveler. But there is the Hungry Ghost Festival! Celebrated on the 15th night of the seventh month in the lunar calendar and sometimes referred to as the Chinese Halloween, this is the time of year when ghosts leave heaven and hell to visit the living.

Some ghosts are people who were never given a proper send-off. Other ghosts are spirits of people whose family lines have died out. Feeling lost and abandoned, and without the healing salve of ancestral worship, these ghosts can turn malignant and become powerful threats to the living.

During Hungry Ghost Festival the dead wander the earth in search of affection. They are called hungry ghosts because they are hungry for recognition and care. Some ghosts are invited into the home and given elaborate vegetarian meals. Empty seats are set around the table for each of the deceased in the family. Incense and fake money, called joss paper, is also burned so ghosts can have proper funds when they return to heaven or hell.

Other Great Reads: Burning Viagra in China to stimulate the dead

In China, ceremonies are held in the afternoon on the day of the festival and monks throw rice into the air to distribute to the ghosts. Many shops are closed in order to leave streets open for the ghosts. Alters with incense and fresh fruit are placed in the middle of the street for ghosts to pick at. To ensure that ghosts can find their way back to heaven or hell, 14 days after the festival people light lotus flower-shaped lanterns and set them adrift on paper boats.

During this month people avoid surgery, buying cars, swimming and going out after dark. It is also important that addresses are not revealed to the ghosts.

In Singapore and Malaysia, stages are set up in local neighborhoods and concerts are given for the ghosts. In Taiwan, it is believed that ghosts haunt the island for the entire month of the festival. On the first day of the month, which is known as Ghost Month, the gates of the temple are opened, symbolizing the opening of the gates of hell. On the 13th day a procession of lanterns is held and on the 14th day a parade is held. Incense, food and paper money are giving as offerings. During this month people avoid surgery, buying cars, swimming and going out after dark. It is also important that addresses are not revealed to the ghosts.

Other Great Reads: A Buddhist view on death

There are several stories for how the holiday came to be. Mahayana Buddhists point to the Ullambana Sutra, which tells the story of how Buddha instructs a disciple named Mahāmaudgalyāyana on how to obtain liberation for his mother. Mahāmaudgalyāyana, who after many years of study had become one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, achieving the high status of “worthy one”, was also known to have clairvoyant powers. At one point he began to wonder what had become of his parents, and used his clairvoyance to see where they had been reborn. He found his father in heaven, but his mother had been reborn in hell, otherwise known as the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. The ghosts are unable to eat because of the highly thin and fragile throats which they possess. No food can pass through, and yet because the ghosts have fat bellies they are constantly hungry. The reason his mother ended up there is because she had been greedy with money he had left her. Mahāmaudgalyāyana had instructed his mother to kindly host any Buddhist monks that ever came her way, but she didn’t host anyone and used the money for her own purposes.

To ease his mother’s suffering the Buddha gave Mahāmaudgalyāyana detailed instructions for him and his mother to follow. Place pieces of food on a clean plate, recite a mantra seven times to bless the food, snap your fingers to call out to the deceased and tip the food onto clean ground. The instructions were followed correctly and Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s mother was reborn as a dog under the care of a noble family. But Maudgalyāyana then asked the Buddha to help his mother gain a human birth. In response to that request, the Buddha established the 14th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar as the day of hungry ghosts, when ghosts can come out from either heaven or hell and join with the living. When the festival is over though, they must return.