Ghost Festival

[david_dawei]

Anyone's SO partake in the Ghost Festival? Next week, Sept 26... My understanding is that it's popularity has decreased on the mainland (communist influence) than say HK or Taiwan...

 

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Ghost Festival (ÖÐÔª½Ú; zhong1 yuan2 jie2)

 

The Ghost Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday, which is celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 14th night of the seventh lunar month.

 

In Chinese tradition, the seventh month in the Chinese calendar is called the Ghost Month (¹íÔÂ), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower world to visit earth. The Ghost Festival is the climax of a series of the Ghost Month celebrations. Traditionally, ancestor worshiping was an important part of the festivals, with activities including preparing ritualistic offering food, and burning hell money and bags containing cloth to please the visiting ghosts and spirits of the ancestors, as well as other deities. Other activities include, burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies "giving directions to the lost ghosts and spirits of the ancestors and other deities." A very solemn festival of ancestor worshiping, the festival nevertheless represents a connection between the ancestors and the descendants, the living and the dead, earth and heaven, as well as body and soul.

 

The Ghost Festival shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of El D¨ªa de los Muertos. Due to theme of ghosts and spirits, the festival is sometimes also known as the Chinese Halloween, though many have debated the difference between the two.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival

[Randy W]

Jiaying says ÖÐÇï½Ú - Aug 26 and screamed "No - death - shagua!" at me! "Death people holiday"

 

ÖÐÔª½Ú is Sept 25 - people get together and eat dinner

 

I just ducked.

Edited August 20, 2007 by Randy W (see edit history)

[hakkamike]

Dusting off the Weegie Board and pre-set the radio to Art Bell

[danielm2]

Dusting off the Weegie Board and pre-set the radio to Art Bell

 

I love Art Bell! I've been telling my SO that she better get rid of her fear of all things ghosts cause we'll be falling asleep to Coast to Coast everynight. haha.

 

George Noory's alright, but Art Bell IS Coast to Coast AM.

 

Any other Coast fans?

[trumpetwasher]

Dusting off the Weegie Board and pre-set the radio to Art Bell

 

Given some of the interesting relationships we have developed with GUZ, perhaps a Ouija board would be more helpful than a keyboard! "Oh, spirit, when will Long Wei get her interview?"

 

Has anyone ever called Art Bell or George Noory about the obvious conspiracy to randomly deny visas to decent, hard-working citizens?

Edited August 20, 2007 by trumpetwasher (see edit history)

[tywy_99]

Anyone's SO partake in the Ghost Festival? Next week, Sept 26... My understanding is that it's popularity has decreased on the mainland (communist influence) than say HK or Taiwan...

 

---

 

Ghost Festival (ÖÐÔª½Ú; zhong1 yuan2 jie2)

 

The Ghost Festival is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday, which is celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 14th night of the seventh lunar month.

 

In Chinese tradition, the seventh month in the Chinese calendar is called the Ghost Month (¹íÔÂ), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower world to visit earth. The Ghost Festival is the climax of a series of the Ghost Month celebrations. Traditionally, ancestor worshiping was an important part of the festivals, with activities including preparing ritualistic offering food, and burning hell money and bags containing cloth to please the visiting ghosts and spirits of the ancestors, as well as other deities. Other activities include, burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies "giving directions to the lost ghosts and spirits of the ancestors and other deities." A very solemn festival of ancestor worshiping, the festival nevertheless represents a connection between the ancestors and the descendants, the living and the dead, earth and heaven, as well as body and soul.

 

The Ghost Festival shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of El D¨ªa de los Muertos. Due to theme of ghosts and spirits, the festival is sometimes also known as the Chinese Halloween, though many have debated the difference between the two.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival

I don't think people pay much attention to it as the once did. The popularity has fallen.

[Steve and Aiwen]

I've had a hard time explaining our Halloween to Aiwen....."why does everybody wear mask?" she asks......

 

Steve

[chilton747]

Leave it to David to dig up the buried I will ask Haihua about this and report back ASAP.

[david_dawei]

Leave it to David to dig up the buried I will ask Haihua about this and report back ASAP.

It might not interest most, but I'll tell you why it came up...

 

At another website where we discuss Dao philosophy and texts, someone asked about the translation of DDJ60 (The Way and the Power, chapter 60).

 

The translation in question used the words "demons", "gods" and "sages" in transition... and because of the infrequent use of "gods" usually translated in the DDJ, someone raised the question.

 

I commented that I didn't like this useage of "gods" since the passage reminded me too much of the description of the Ghost Festival, where "[ancestor] spirits and ghosts from the underworld come to the earth"... I usually don't associate "gods" with the underworld and felt that "ghosts and spirits" was a better rendering.

 

This is one of the rare times I'd like to be in another asian country (or Taiwan or HK) to see this festival played out (since mainland does not appear to celebrate it that much anymore).

[chilton747]

Leave it to David to dig up the buried I will ask Haihua about this and report back ASAP.

It might not interest most, but I'll tell you why it came up...

 

At another website where we discuss Dao philosophy and texts, someone asked about the translation of DDJ60 (The Way and the Power, chapter 60).

 

The translation in question used the words "demons", "gods" and "sages" in transition... and because of the infrequent use of "gods" usually translated in the DDJ, someone raised the question.

 

I commented that I didn't like this useage of "gods" since the passage reminded me too much of the description of the Ghost Festival, where "[ancestor] spirits and ghosts from the underworld come to the earth"... I usually don't associate "gods" with the underworld and felt that "ghosts and spirits" was a better rendering.

 

This is one of the rare times I'd like to be in another asian country (or Taiwan or HK) to see this festival played out (since mainland does not appear to celebrate it that much anymore).

 

Yes indeed this is very interesting. Haihua just told me that she does not believe ghosts exists in this world. She does nothing for this "holiday" and yes she did equate it to the USA Halloween but acknowledged that it was not the same.

[chilton747]

Leave it to David to dig up the buried I will ask Haihua about this and report back ASAP.

It might not interest most, but I'll tell you why it came up...

 

At another website where we discuss Dao philosophy and texts, someone asked about the translation of DDJ60 (The Way and the Power, chapter 60).

 

The translation in question used the words "demons", "gods" and "sages" in transition... and because of the infrequent use of "gods" usually translated in the DDJ, someone raised the question.

 

I commented that I didn't like this useage of "gods" since the passage reminded me too much of the description of the Ghost Festival, where "[ancestor] spirits and ghosts from the underworld come to the earth"... I usually don't associate "gods" with the underworld and felt that "ghosts and spirits" was a better rendering.

 

This is one of the rare times I'd like to be in another asian country (or Taiwan or HK) to see this festival played out (since mainland does not appear to celebrate it that much anymore).

 

Yes indeed this is very interesting. Haihua just told me that she does not believe ghosts exists in this world. She does nothing for this "holiday" and yes she did equate it to the USA Halloween but acknowledged that it was not the same.

 

She tells me that her city of Jiujiang celebrates this Ghost day. They make paper boats and set them on fire. She says many people there do this and the air is filled with smoke much to her dissatisfaction. Apparently a lot of fireworks also. Everytime I have been to Jiujiang they have always used a lot of fireworks for some reason or another.

[chilton747]

My wife just told me she would make some pictures of this ghost day and I will pass them along. Did you say it was next week or Sept 26?

[david_dawei]

Also called the Hungry Ghost Festival.. here's a short write-up:

http://springsun.multiply.com/journal/item/22

http://ncnc.essortment.com/hungryghostfes_rjkb.htm

 

If anyone has seen the movie, "The Little Chinese Seamstress".. there's a scene at the end where the village burns paper boats with names written on them.

 

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I find in multiple references that it started already (Aug 13 or 14).. but Wiki (and Randy's wife) said the gates of hell open on Aug 26

[bosco]

Before I met Ling, I was in the old city of Lijiang and participated with thousands of others burning the little paper boats. But I was just a laowai passing through and didn't know the details of what it was all about.

[chilton747]

Also called the Hungry Ghost Festival.. here's a short write-up:

http://springsun.multiply.com/journal/item/22

http://ncnc.essortment.com/hungryghostfes_rjkb.htm

 

If anyone has seen the movie, "The Little Chinese Seamstress".. there's a scene at the end where the village burns paper boats with names written on them.

 

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I find in multiple references that it started already (Aug 13 or 14).. but Wiki (and Randy's wife) said the gates of hell open on Aug 26

 

After reading these writeups I am very happy my wife does not believe in all of this As far as the date, I did ask her this but she did not know. Instead she said "no worry, I will know when."