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| - The Chinese Ghost Festival was a holiday quest from 13 August to 18 August 2008.
- Unlike the Japanese Obon, Ghost Festival is not strongly associated with visiting and cleaning ancestors' graves. There are other traditional Chinese festivals on which that occurs, namely Qingming Festival (or Tomb-Sweeping Day) in spring and Chung Yeung Festival (or Double Ninth Festival) in autumn. During Ghost Festival people are more concerned with so called "hungry ghosts', the ghosts of people who died without leaving any descendants or of people whose family did not know they had died, for example, people who died far away from home. Hungry ghosts are usually imagined as having long skinny necks, because they do not have food provided for them by their living descendants.
- In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in Spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in Autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living.
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| abstract
| - Unlike the Japanese Obon, Ghost Festival is not strongly associated with visiting and cleaning ancestors' graves. There are other traditional Chinese festivals on which that occurs, namely Qingming Festival (or Tomb-Sweeping Day) in spring and Chung Yeung Festival (or Double Ninth Festival) in autumn. During Ghost Festival people are more concerned with so called "hungry ghosts', the ghosts of people who died without leaving any descendants or of people whose family did not know they had died, for example, people who died far away from home. Hungry ghosts are usually imagined as having long skinny necks, because they do not have food provided for them by their living descendants. Although free entertainments are provided in many places during Ghost Month, unlike Obon and Halloween, Ghost Month is not usually regarded as a happy time of year. The threat from mischievous or wicked ghosts is taken seriously by many people. There are many taboos connected with the holiday and many activities which are performed to prevent bad luck. Strangely enough, Qinming Festival (also known as Lovers' Day or Chinese Valentine's Day) occurs during Ghost Month, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. For one day, people largely put aside worries about things that go bump in the night and turn their attention to dates, chocolates and flowers.
- The Chinese Ghost Festival was a holiday quest from 13 August to 18 August 2008.
- In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (in Spring) and Chung Yeung Festival (in Autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, on Ghost Day, the deceased are believed to visit the living. On the fifteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both 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 incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mache form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods 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. Ancestor worship is what distinguishes Qingming Festival from Ghost Festival because the latter includes paying respects to all deceased, including the same and younger generations, while the former only includes older generations. Other festivities may include, buying 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.
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