Tag: Hungry Ghost festival

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Chinese Culture

Hungry Ghost festival

For the past couple years, car companies give big discounts or special promos during the month of August. Should you buy? Not if you believe in the Chinese ghost month. In Chinese culture, the 15th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day or Hungry Ghost Festival (七月半 in Hokkien) […]

Categories
Chinese Culture Philosophy

Catholics and Hungry Ghosts

Food, prayers and other offerings are regularly presented to the souls of ancestors in the belief that they could impart blessings or curses on their descendants.

First published in Tulay Fortnightly, Chinese-Filipino Digest 28, no. 5 (August 4-17, 2015): 8-9. Prior to the arrival of Buddhism in China in the first century of the Common Era, the seventh lunar month was already the customary time for praying for the dead. Taoist rituals already existed for this purpose. As Buddhism inculturated and […]