It was the Ghost Festival yesterday.
We prepared ritualistic food offerings:
burning of hell money:
The Ghost Festival is a traditional Taiwanese festival and holiday, which is celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 14th night of the seventh lunar month.
In Chinese tradition, the thirteen day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar [Buddhist rituals are held on the fourteen day] is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month, in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower world. During the Qingming Festival the living descendants pay homage to their ancestors and on Ghost Day the deceased visit the living. On the thirteen day the three realms of Heaven, Hell and the realm of the living are open and the Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths. Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning of hell money and bags containing cloth for the visiting spirits of the ancestors. Elaborate meals would be served with empty seats for each of the deceased in the family treating the deceased as if they are still living. Other festivities may include, burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies giving directions to the lost ghosts and spirits of the ancestors and other deities.
The Ghost Festival shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of El Día de los Muertos. Due to theme of ghosts and spirits, the festival is sometimes also known as the Chinese Halloween, though many have debated the difference between the two.
