In the seventh lunar month, (in August in 2011), Singapore celebrates the festival that has its origins in Taoist belief. In Chinatown and the housing settlements throughout the island, the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts is celebrated with street theatre, feasting, colourful decorations and ritual offerings.
What Does the Hungry Ghosts Festival Mean?
In the seventh lunar month, the Gates of Hell are opened. All the spirits who have been denied access to Heaven are freed to roam the earth. The living must honour their ancestors and deceased loved ones, and placate any angry spirits who are wandering nearby.
The month-long Festival of the Hungry Ghosts is considered to be an unlucky time. People avoid buying property, getting engaged or getting married during these days. Even swimming is thought to be dangerous in case an angry ghost drowns you.
How do People Celebrate the Hungry Ghosts Festival?
On open spaces in the housing developments and in blocked-off streets in the city itself, huge red and white striped tents are erected. These become the centres for different types of street performances called getai. Singers and dancers, puppet shows and orchestras take the stage to entertain the people. Also performed in these venues are Chinese operas (wayang), with elaborate, colourful costumes and loud music.
Small altars are set up outside homes and businesses. Here offerings of food, such as oranges, pineapples, apples and bowls of rice, and bottles and cartons of drinks, are placed. If the hungry ghosts can feast outside the buildings they won't come inside.
Grand dinners for extended families and sometimes even whole communities are held.
To ensure the ghosts have enough money and possessions for the afterlife, the living buy replicas of worldly goods that are made of paper. On pavements outside their shops, traders stack huge bundles of paper 'hell' money. This money is brightly coloured and patterned. It comes in very expensive denominations; you can buy stacks of $1 million bills.
Also for sale are packaged sets of everyday items and clothing, all made of paper. You can buy paper dentures, paper shirts, paper jewellery, large paper cars, even paper computers and paper iPads!
And what happens to all these paper items and 'hell' money? They are burnt, to give the ghosts good fortune in the afterlife. Large incinerator bins are set up all around the housing estates for people to burn their lucky papers. Sometimes people set fire to them in little piles on the pavements or on their outside altars.
Red and gold paper lanterns and banners decorate the temples. People go to say special prayers for their ancestors and to burn joss (incense) sticks.
At the end of the month, the hungry ghosts all go back to the underworld and the Gates of Hell slam shut for another year.
The people of Singapore then look forward to their next festival to be held in the eighth lunar month - the festival of lanterns and moon cakes.
Wendy Craig - Wendy is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, anthologies and travel books in New Zealand and U.K.
