Ghost Festival
This article is about the Chinese Ghost Festival. For the festival in Loei province, Thailand, see Pee Ta Khon.
The Ghost Festival (Traditional Chinese: 中元節 pinyin: zhong1 yuan jie) is a traditional Chinese festival/holiday, which is celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the fifteenth day of the 7th lunar month.
In Chinese tradition, the 7th month in Chinese calendar is called the Ghost Month (Traditional Chinese: 鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits come out from the lower world to visit earth. The Ghost Festival is the climax of a series of the Ghost Month celebrations. Activities at the festival include preparing ritualistic offering food, and burning Spiritual Money (or paper money) to please the visiting ghosts and spirits as well as deities and ancestors. Other activities include burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies "giving directions to the lost ghosts". A very solemn festival, the festival nevertheless represents a connection between the living and the dead, earth and heaven as well as body and soul.
The Ghost Festival has rootings from Buddhist festival, Ullambana, and Daoist culture. In the Tang Dynasty, the Buddhist festival "Ullambana" and traditional festivities mixed to be celebrated on one day. Thus, the Ghost Festival has special meaning for all Buddhists as one of their most important festivals.
See also: Ancestor worship
