The Pizzazzy

Hungry Ghost Month is finally over. Hungry Ghost Month! Sounds strange right. It’s not so strange in the eastern culture. The 7th Lunar month according to Chinese calendar is known as the Hungry Ghost Month or simply ghost month. This month starts around mid August and goes on till mid September.

For the past one month I have been noticing some activities along the road from MRT station to my place and around the campus of our rented condo. I observed people burning some colored papers, and traditional chinese incense sticks and also some food offerings in a group or individually. Being an Indian I simply assumed that it was an offering to God. Then I gathered from my Chinese and local Indian friends that it was the Ghost Month.

Recently during our team lunch we had a good time talking on various topics, Chinese Ghost Month was one of them. Our team has 2 chinese, 3  Indians. So, the talk was very informative and intriguing. I asked my chinese colleague about this ghost month. He told us that this was homage paid to the ancestors. During this month the spirits are free to roam on earth. The Chinese believe that the deceased ancestors come out of their world to visit living people during this month. Through out the month they make offerings, burn joss sticks and pray for the spirits from the other world. On the last day of this period they specifically pray and make offerings to ensure that the ghosts do not linger past their welcome period.

One can see by the road side the empty coal barrels being used for burning something. I asked my colleague about the papers that were burned and could be seen all over the place. He replied “Money!!” And as me and my Indian freinds were clearly shocked (since it is too much to think that they are burning dollars) he further clarified that not the Singapore dollars, it is some colored papers which they buy from shops. Its called Hell money.

Two questions immediately struck me. One, why was it called Hell money since everyone would wish that their ancestors finally landed in Heaven and not Hell. And second, why would our ancestors need money wherever they are. The common Indian belief is that once a soul leaves the body, they are devoid of all worldy attachments and detached of all materialistic things. I know this belief is again questionalble since we do offer food through the medium of crow to our ancestors. Coming to Hell Money, these papers are printed like normal currency notes with outrageous denominators like 1 trillion etc.  The money is offered to the King of hell to ensure shorter stay for any ancestor who might be undergoing a punishment. Some Chinese believe this is for their ancestors for spending in the other world.

During this month, the Chinese avoid any auspicious and ceremonial activities such as as marriage, building work or beginning of concern or prospect and even postponing a surgery if possible. A curious fact is that out of the 131 properties put up for sale by auction during this year’s Hungry Ghost month, just 10 were sold - for a total value of $9.56 million - new data from property firm Colliers International shows. This figure is one of the lowest seen in the past 10 years. Apart from other economical reasons this was also attributed to buyers holding the purchases during the Hungry Ghost month. Home buyers seemed to brush aside the usual worries over buying property during the Chinese Hungry Ghost month - considered unlucky.

I found this quite similar to the Shraddh period of Hindus, the pitru-paksh. Where we also perform prayers usually near a temple or at river banks to collectively pay respect to all the known and unknown ancestors. These prayers are usually performed under a trained priest. We offer food in the name of our deceased ancestors. For the whole month nothing auspicious is discussed. During this month no marriage discussion, no future plans are made and even no purchases are done even of small items like clothes.

It was very interesting to draw the parellel between two vastly different cultures even though the food offered by Chinese are KFC chicken, Coke, Pepsi. Both the cultures respect the deceased ancestors in a similar fashion. The Chinese Ghost Month also sometimes coincides with Indian Pitru-Paksh.