China's Ghost Festival

Zhong Yuan Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month. It is also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival.In fact people called it the Ghost Festival because they wanted to honor the deceased ancestors.

Taoism teaches that the fifteenth of the 1st month is the Shang Yuan Festival (Lantern Festival). The 15th of the seventh is Zhong Yuan Festival (Hungry Ghost festival). And the 15th of the tenth is Xia Yuan Festival. There are gods of heaven, earth and water in Taoism. And these three festivals are Taoist festivals.

In many folk customs there is a traditional virtue of filial piety. In Chinese teaching, filial piety is the most important of all virtues. Filial piety embodies kindness, conscience and caring whether to the alive or the deceased. After all filial piety the driving force behind the Zhong Yuan Festival

On the day of the Zhong Yuan FestivalTaoist temples would hold ceremonies to release the suffering of both the dead and alive to pray for seasonable weather for growing crops, for the country to flourish and the people to live in peace.

On Zhong Yuan Festival there are customs such as Zhong Yuan ceremonies, worshiping three gods, Buddhist ceremonies, releasing lanterns on water, lighting Lotus lanterns, selling sheep made out of flour and worshiping ancestors.

It is popular for uncles to give sheep to their nephews in the rural areas of North China on Zhong Yuan Festival. It is said that this custom is related to the legend of Chen Xiang who broke the mountain and rescued his mother. He wanted to hunt down his uncle who had abused his mother after he rescued his mother in order to rebuild the relationships with his sister and his nephew. The god Erlang would send Chen Xiang a pair of sheep on the 15th of the seventh month every year. It is said “yang” (sheep) here is a phonetic pun that refers to the surname of the god Erlang and Chen Xiang’s mother to rebuild the relationships of the two families. From then on the custom of sending sheep passed away. And then it turned into sending flour sheep.

In a document called Imperial Age Ji Sheng in the Qing Dynasty it said the Zhong Yuan is more valuable than Qing Ming in terms of tombs weeping.People are delighted be to see the sights of lush shadows of the trees, the crops growing and the cicadas chirping.Common people are like this but the emperor is even more than that.

The inscription called Yu Ling magic holiness inscription in East Qing Tombs saidQianlong emperor had been treating his mother Sheng Xian with filial respect for 42 yearsand greeted and served his mother every morning and night holding her arm and arranging her carriage with deep respect and served her like this all her life.