Friday's Chinese Holiday: the Chinese Ghost Festival
Written by Rain Che Bian
Friday, 15 August 2008
We have all seen the Disney renditions. Pale Chinese ghosts of flowy snow-white beards, jolly spirits prancing around flickering candlelight, vases that emit the gasp and groan of 3000-year-old Chinese souls. These scenes will spring to mind when you hear the words, "Chinese Ghost Festival," which in reality is minus the joviality, the romanticized (exoticized) cartoony figures, and caricatural Chinese music. To you, an expat, it is a night of smelling smoke in all parts of town and finding street corners alight with burnt paper money flying all about.
The Chinese Ghost Festival, "Gui Jie," is not to be confused with the Qingming Festival, which takes place in April and is a time for descendants to attend to their ancestors' graves. Falling on July 15 of every year on the lunar calendar - for this year, it translates to August 15 on the Gregorian calendar - the Ghost Festival is a time when the dead are known to come out and visit the living. The descendants return the favor by burning ritualistic offerings, which ranges from plain joss paper, incense sticks, fake credit cards, and paper Viagra.
The tradition is to burn the offerings in the evening, at crossroads where it is supposedly easier within reach of spirits. Typically a circle about a foot in diameter is first drawn on the ground to distinguish the offerings from other participants in the festival. Sometimes one sprinkles water around the circle to mark the territory for the recipient, so to speak, and to bar entry to other spirits. Then joss paper and other offerings are burnt until nothing but a small mound of ashes remain.
The pollution that the festival leaves is perpetually a headache for city officials. The Dalian government, for example, issues recommendations every year against burning anything in the streets, and prescribes the alternative option of bringing flowers to cemeteries. On the other hand, some scholars argue that the tradition must be preserved, and that sanitary problems may be prevented by setting up designated paper burning zones. The debate remains unresolved, and for the time being, at least, the tradition carries on with a certain vigor. When you are out about town Friday evening or Saturday morning, you won't be able to miss it.
Editor's Note:
Dalianxpat welcomes submissions of any length or format relating to the Chinese Ghost Festival - including personal encounters, comments and observations of the tradition, or comparative analyses of the holiday with similar traditions, such as the Mexican Day of the Dead and the Western Halloween. Please submit to editor@dalianxpat.com
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