I wanted to blog about Hungry Ghost Festival (中元节), but have been sitting on it for one whole month! Finally, on the last day of the Hungry Ghost Festival, we managed to take some interesting photos.
Gee, feel kinda funny to write something related to ghosts and spirits in the silence of the night. For the sake you, I shall blog on :S …
What is Hungry Ghost Festival? Hungry Ghost Festival is one of the major festivals in Chinese culture. It is a month-long festival celebrated on the 7th Lunar month and this year, it fell on 1st August. On that day, it is believed that the “Gates of Hell” are opened and the dead will return to the human world. During this period, many Chinese will try to AVOID moving in to a new house, getting married, staying out late etc.
The food on the table are offerings for the restless souls wandering around during the one-month long Hungry Ghost Festival. My friend told me his friend who is able to see “things” saw those spirits grabbing the food to eat during the 7th Lunar month. -_-“
Sounds scary? Well, to appease the wandering spirits to prevent them from entering homes and causing disturbances, food such as chicken, rice, vegetables are placed along the roadside and street corners to making offerings to the spirits. Bundles of hell bank notes are burnt as offerings to the spirits for them to spend in hell. These hell bank notes come in different denominations! They are hell lots of big notes!! =P
Preparing before burning the offerings to the “brothers” and “sisters”.
Lighting up the joss sticks.
This is the time you get the chance to burn millions of “Dollars”!
Just hope that no one was looking at us strangely while we were taking photos of this prayer process, and most importantly, we wouldn’t get any FLOATING GHOSTLY IMAGE!! eeeek
So much about food and hell notes offerings to the “hungry ghosts”, how about entertainment for the month-long “holiday” in the human world? Here comes the “Getai” (Chinese pronounciation of “歌台”) which literally means “song stage”. Getai are performances such as Chinese operas or popular hits in Chinese dialets held on make-shift stages. The performers usually wear elaborated costumes to sing and dance to entertain the spirits! Of course, many humans love to watch Getai too! =P
Nowadays, Getai in Singapore are mostly performed by Hokkien singers and entertainers. On a certain day, dinner will be held with auction of auspicious items and many will bid for these items, hoping that they will bring prosperity for the year.
Who cares! You dare to wear, I dare to shoot! =P ~ It’s a she-man.
This little singer is younger than 4 years old, but she has a good memory; she is able to memorize a song within a day! This little girl sang 4 Chinese and Hokkien (dialect) songs for the night. Some audience gave her red packets filled with money (I supposed!).
The little girl handing over the red packets to her mother for keep.
Getai performances are supposed to entertain the spirits during Hungry Ghost Festival, but as you can see here, humans are being entertained too!!! So far, did you see any “thing” that is not supposed to be in the photos? =P
At the backstage of Getai, the make-shift stage.
The Hungry Ghost Festival officially ended on 30 August in 2008. The upcoming major Chinese Festival is the Mid-Autumn Festival, the day when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, Chinese families gather around eating mooncakes, appreciating beautiful lanterns and children carrying brightly lit lanterns.
Read about the beautiful Mid-Autumn Festival in Singapore =)
Read posts filed under Singapore Attractions.
haha…yaya…finally over already….hahaha….
蕾蕾~
Hahah, never know it’s called hungry ghost festival!! I used to call it ghost festival only heheh!
Hey, i like ur 2nd photo!! the effect of close things clear and far things blur..hw did u do that? 😀 mind to tell?? please eunice jie jie, please….
Hi Eunice!
Good job on this blog post. I didn’t know about this celebration and really enjoyed reading about it.
The American version of this must be our Halloween celebration, but it is only one day. It is more like a fairy tale version with having fun with pretend ghosts and goblins. It is nothing like your great celebration!!
BTW, I just moved all of those cute little awards to the sidebar in a slide show. I am very proud of all of them! Thanks again.
Have a good day!!
Eunice, photos of the candle especially the table with all those food scares the hel* out of me. I also don’t know that you have celebrations like this in Singapore of even the Chinese. There are a lot of Chinese people here but I don’t know anybody in personally so I am not aware of that……thanks for continuously educating us….
This is a very interesting post ! Informative too ! Something different from the usual travel related posts, always good to share our various different cultures and practices to people from all over the world.
Aiyo… I did not go out to see the dance and show. Missed it already. 😛
Hungry Ghost Festival ?
I can’t see any ghost in your pics =P
I might not dare to take a pictures at those places… 😛
He..he…did you burn any ‘Big’ made-in-hell house or cars to the ghost as well?
I thought I saw some creature sailing over the Getai white pavilion/tent, in the upper right hand corner of the third from the last picture. Or is that just an optical illusion?
Someone mentioned the Western Holiday that is somewhat similar to this Hungry Ghost Festival, our Halloween. Here are a couple of pictures of our Holiday, one of a pumpkin carved hollow, with a fierce face carved on it, and a candle burning inside – this is a jack-o-lantern. The other picture is of the kind of costumes children wear when they go out “trick or treating,” where they scare you into giving them candy. One is a witch, the other appears to be a skeleton.
http://tinyurl.com/5hk42e
http://tinyurl.com/5kqtgu
@Lz: I just googled about Ghost Festival and seems that it’s called Hungry Ghost Festival in Singapore only, you are right too!
@Joy: Some relate this Chinese Ghost Festival as Chinese Halloween too, but of cos, it’s very different. =D I have never joined in any Halloween party before, but it seems fun to dress up like something we will not do on normal days!
@蕾蕾: The air is clearer now, with less burning taking place =P
@salingPUSA: Scary? Not the candles and joss sticks, but “those” floating around XP Just kidding!
@JH: Yeah, I find it interesting to blog about different cultures too!
@Jayce: We managed to catch the last Getai on the last day of the Ghost Festival only. Before that, the night usually rained, also, I don’t like to squeeze in the crowd to watch Getai.
@JeromeFo: Cos you don’t have “The Eye”, otherwise, it’s cos my camera doesn’t have “The Eye”… XP
Kikey: Same here, I procrastinated until the last day of the Hungry Ghost month then took those pictures at those places for the “professional” sake of blogging LOL!!
@Cecil: No lah!!! HAHA!! Not to that extent!!! I only burnt a pack of incense papers I bought at S$5 from a shop at my neighbourhood, also for the sake of taking photos of them to blog about this festival =P
Those hell-house/cars are not cheap, really “burning” own money in that case!! eeeeeeekk
Must be very scary at night.
@Chuck: It’s not Optical illusion, it’s really some creature!!! XD Glad that you saw it! LOL!!
I saw your halloween pics! It’s so much fun! Wonder if the real “thing” will appear among the people in the Halloween party =P Trick or Treating!
😀
@leafless: Er, not too bad. I only hope no one found us acting strangely while taking photos of the incense!
Boooooooooooooo…. I tooo wantt some moneyyyy .. Send it to my mail i.dddd .. Else i ll haunt you in your dreamsssssssss .. Boooooooooooooooooooooooo…
Aiyo .. How come my pic is appearing in Frankenstien’s comment ??! :p
I took photos of my hubby praying and burning Hell notes too. 🙂 I enjoyed myself at the getais. I don’t use a DSLR so my photos appeared blur taken with a digi camera. Also the distance I was standing was quite far from the singers. 🙁
The Qi Yu Wu pictures were so sayang. *sob sob*
Are you going to the Gala Premier on Wednesday?
See you on Friday night, at the awards!
@eastcoastlife: Hi!! Sure I will check out your blog now! Yes, going to the Gala Premier. Can your son go? Cos I heard it NC16, and some can’t go. Sure, see you on Friday night! =D
@KC aka Frankenstein: I think Frankenstein is cuteee! LOL!!! I can send you some Hell bank notes if you want hahahahah, or you want me to burn for you =P
@Frankenstein: Your $20,000 note >> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RimB6Xa9B5k/SJpnFyFlUMI/AAAAAAAACnw/BMtpqo3Zkno/s1600-h/P1010006_edited.JPG
Duplicate as many as you please!!! XD
looks like so much fun!
woo. this is how singaporean celebrate hungry ghost festival
not much difference but mroe standard
“eunice, maybe it means 2 things.One, the Philippines is really culturally isolated from Southeast asia or two, I am just too dumb to notice.kkk”
yay! it’s finally OVER!!!! i’m lighting up my laterns now.. hihi~ xD
@Chongwee: I think Malaysia is more traditional when comes to Chinese customs.
@Alex: Haha! Also comes with air pollution =P
@Antonio: Nah, I think cos not many Chinese around?
@Jasmine: Yeah! A lot of beautiful lanterns around now, getting charged to shoot again!! XD
Nice pictures!
Hi, there are a lot moon cake in the market,,,is there related to hungry ghost festival?
@dede: Hungry Ghost Festival is over now, and moon cakes got nothing to do with Hungry Ghost Festival. The moon cakes are out for sales weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival due to competition among moon cake makers who want to get the more sales. =)
@peteformation: Thanks!
hi eunice! there’s a filipino movie with the chinese ghost festival as inspiration. the international title is “the maid.” i watched it and learned a lot about the festival.now you have a post about it and it’s very educational, too! thanks fro sharing.
P.S. i hope to see your name not just at my blog’s tagboard but also at the comments section. 🙂
hungry ghost festival? didn’t get the chance to take photos like these…
haha not sure if anybody actually celebrates that in London….
Thanks for dropping by again…it has been awhile since we last spoke.
Take care.
@Edelweiza: I don’t like to watch ghost movies eeeeek! My imagination is very wild! Sure, would love to leave comments at your blog! It’s my pleasure!
@Chee Wei: London with Hungry Ghost Festival? Hehe, really hard to imagine that! See you again!
i thought it was mainly Teochew(chaozhou) people that celebrated the hungry ghost festival in Singapore.
@Jay: nope, it’s not only Teochew. I’m Cantonese. 🙂
good lah you!