Hungry ghost festival how long

That means the festival typically falls somewhere in August or September on the Western calendar. Wondering when the Hungry Ghost Festival will take place? Learn the dates for the next several years:. You can take advantage of a number of interesting festivities and traditions during the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Choose a few or do them all when participating with family members or friends. People believe that ghosts require money and other goods once they leave. Most people like to offer fake money made from jos paper. I n China, you might see temporary structures set up to burn piles of jos paper for the community.

Burning paper replicas of clothing, electronics, and other items can also ease the hungry ghosts' journey. Shops often specialize in selling all types of paper goods during Hungry Ghost Month for this purpose. People often leave food offerings on a plate outside their doors or in areas with other offerings, such as pieces of fruit, rice, tea, and sweets.

On the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, people believe that the connection between the living and dead is the closest. On this night, you can prepare a huge feast for your family and the ghost ancestors of your family. After your family feast, you offer the feast to passing spirits. You set up a makeshift altar on the curb in front of your home and arrange plates of food from your feast for spirits. You can also burn more money or paper goods that they can take with them as they pass by your home.

Entertainment and community celebrations are common throughout China during the month and especially around the 15th. Plan to attend one of these events which often feature opera and theatric performances. Just make sure to leave the front row of seats open! In Chinese belief, a floating lantern is placed on a river.

This guides spirits away from your home and back to the underworld. Place a floating lantern on any body of water and watch as it floats away. The Hungry Ghost Festival and Hungry Ghost Month is chock full of superstitions and traditions to avoid angry and upset ghosts:. A ghost-feeding ceremony is all about providing for the wandering souls searching the earth for food, entertainment and mischief.

Planning a ghost-feeding ceremony is a bit like putting together a dinner party for a set of invisible guests under a full moon.

You can use craft projects during the Hungry Ghost Festival to introduce the meaning of ritual paper offerings, in the form of joss paper ingots and floating lanterns. Burning ceremonial joss paper is meant to calm wandering spirits, while floating lanterns light a path home at the end of the holiday.

Folding joss paper ingots around the kitchen table can help you explain the importance of sending offerings of money, food and other supplies to passing ghosts. Use our guide to fold joss paper into the gold ingots that were used as ancient Chinese currency. The Hungry Ghost Festival and Ghost Month end by sending the spirits home, guided by the candlelight of a floating lantern. The Hungry Ghost Festival is the perfect opportunity to introduce children to classic Chinese ghost stories, where otherworldly ghouls, ghosts and spirits abound.

The Chinese burn joss paper to send ancestors money and material goods in the afterlife. Use our guide to learn how to use joss paper during the Hungry Ghost Festival, along with how to shop for the three most common types available. I hope you have a great time celebrating the Hungry Ghost Festival this year with these easy activities and crafts.

Please comment below if there are additional resources you would like to see added to the site! HT: Photo by Reuters. Thank you for the information, my Chinese gf and her family are impressed that I take the time to learn about their customs and traditions.

Hopefully this information will help put more feathers in my cap. Always learning. So happy to hear that, John! Thanks for the information. I have a student from Hong Kong and I am trying to learn about his culture.

He is about to celebrate his first Halloween in America. I was looking for how the holidays are similar. Next year! A big graceful thanks to you for all these kind information that you have provided on your page; It helps me a lot in many ways. As we move closer towards the police stop, they took the breathalyser test on all the drivers in front of me. Everyone in the car started to panic. When it was my turn, the police took a look at me, and gave me the signal to drive through.

But then again, the police was just right in front of me, how could he not see that we have 6 people in the car? Was i really that lucky? Or was it Gui Zhe Yan ghost covered his eyes? Asia ghost , ghosts , ghost , paranormal , halloween , horror , scary , haunted , ghostbusters , ghost adventures , death , hell , heaven , god , ghost whisperer , religion , ghost festival , pontianak , fear ,mystery , thrilling , ghost story , ghost caught on camera , ghost of tsushima , ghost rider , haunted house , ghost hunters , ghost recon , ghost movie , are ghosts real.