The Chinese Ghost month – The Chungyuan Festival

23 8 月, 2020 hedgebear2017

In Chinese culture, the seventh month in the lunar calendar is regarded as the Ghost Month, the first day of the month is taken as the day opening the gates of hell so that ghosts, spirits and ancestors could spend all month wondering the world until the gate is closed on the 30th day of the month. They said that it is a month the ancestors come to have a look their family, the hungry ghosts come to earth to look for the food, also some ghosts come to earth finding fall guy instead of them so that they could be reincarnated. Therefore, people perform a ritual on the 15th day of the month which called the Ghost Festival ( The Chungyuan Festival), by offering incense, food and spirit paper, to show respect and to deter from visiting home.

During the month, there are some taboos to avoid from offending the ghosts. You can see more interesting taboos in the article 「10 Taboos during Chinese Ghost」, which describes 10 taboos reasons and stories.

As time goes, the new generation does not take the Ghost Month as a horrible month anymore but have more respect of the month. There are also some interesting commercial events for the festival as well.

Let’s see what kind of commercial do we have during the month: 

https://youtu.be/3lNIV4uDgf8

2016 Carrefour (retrieved from: https://www.cardu.com.tw)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6bpLiPbG_TM%3Ffeature%3Doembedhttps%3A