Beware the hungry ghosts

The seventh lunar month starts tomorrow, and that means a month without weddings or engagements within the Tsinoy community. That is because the seventh month is when the ghosts roam among the living, let out from the underworld for a month-long furlough, and no one wants such "uninvited guests" at their party. Besides, the seventh month in China is the height of summer and can get really hot; my grandmother used to refer to the "fires of the seventh month".

But not all ghosts are created equal. There are the spirits of dead ancestors who regularly receive offerings of food, money, clothing and other items from filial descendants, and on the seventh month they are feted royally. And then there are the homeless and hungry ghosts, or kui in Fookienese, who for one reason or another receive no offerings of food the whole year and thus must forage in the world of the living this one month to take what they can.

The first day of the month sees the emptying out of hell, when the gates are thrown open and a mad rush of spirits and ghosts ensues. On the fifteenth day of the month (which falls on 30 August this year), a big feast is held to feed the hungry ghosts. I remember my maternal aunts preparing chickens and pata (pork leg) and fruits and different rice cakes and setting everything up on a long table outside or near the door–for these hungry ghosts are considered vagrants and you certainly do not want to have them eating inside the house in the main dining room! A separate feast is prepared for inside the house, and after the ancestors are "invited" to the feast, the living relatives pig out big time! My aunts used to comment that food generally tastes blander in the seventh month because the ghosts sample the food first. For the duration of the month food is also left in the kitchen–representing the hearth–for the ghosts, I suppose, to snack anytime they please.

Sons (or their wives, by extension of the obligation) are required to participate in rituals of piety so that the lot of the ancestors may improve. Food is offered so that the ancestors do not have to beg or steal, and spirit money is burned so that they will have something to spend–or bribe the officials in hell to escape punishment. This probably explains why graft and corruption is so hard to eradicate in this part of the world, since even in the afterlife you still have to make lagay!

Unlike ghosts of other nationalities who demand to be appeased with offerings of blood or virgins, Chinese ghosts are more practical and reasonable–they just want to be fed.