Are You Hungry Tonight??? - Hungry Ghost Festival

The Chinese believe that during the 7th lunar month that usually falls in July-August, hungry ghosts are allowed to roam the world in order to satiate their desire and hunger for food and materialistic needs. Therefore food and ritualistic offerings are prepared for these roaming, hungry spirits in order to keep peace with them and also perhaps extract a favour or two as well.

Lanterns signal an ongoing
Hungry Ghost festival -
Sentul 2016

Offering prayers to the King of Hades (Da Shi Yeh) -
Ampang Mewah 2016

The Hungry Ghost festival or also known as Ullambana by the Chinese Buddhist is actually not confined to the Chinese alone. The Bon festival (where you get to see the Bon-Odori dance) is the Japanese version of this Hungry Ghost Festival. The concept of the festival, whether Chinese/Taoist or Buddhist remains the same, ie offerings of relief (in the form of food, material belongings or merits) to these suffering beings known as hungry ghost.

Priest conducts prayers for the spirits of the departed in conjunction with the festival -
Ampang Mewah 2016

The face Da Shi Yeh catching fire as he was being burnt
at the end of the 15 day celebration in
Bukit Mertajam (2015)

In South-East Asian countries with a high number of ethnic Chinese, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and certain parts of Thailand, you can see such offerings being given to these spirits on the roadside as well as in temples and makeshift altars set up specifically for the festival. The make-shift altars, known as Phor Thor (or Universal Deliverance Prayers) comes with a large amount of food, paper offerings and huge paper effigies of the King of Hades or Da Shi Ye and his retinue of underworld deities and officers to keep watch of the roaming hungry ghost to prevent any  incidence of mischief by them.

The famous Bukit Mertajam Da Shi Yeh

Opening the eyes of Da Shi Yeh -
Sentul 2016

Chinese opera at Lim Jetty Hungry Ghost Festival  -
the troupe is from Fujian, China

And to keep the ghost happy, entertainment in the form of Chinese opera, stage performances (know and getai/khor tai and can range from just singing to almost lewd performances), Chinese puppet show and various martial arts display are usually put on with rows of seats are that purposely left empty. These (usually front) seats are not 'empty' in the sense they are actually reserved for the ghosts and roaming spirits. And to top it off, a small amount of food and joss-sticks are placed on the chairs, just in case 'they' need a snack to go with the entertainment.

Besides keeping the ghosts fed, it is also a time for people to make merit by donating food that are distributed to the poor or needy, as well as feeding the less ghostly visitors of the event. Hence piles of rice cakes, roasted pig, vegetables and rice are offered and given away during the Phor Thor event which can run for one, three or even up to 15 days!

At the end of the prayers (be it one, three, five or 15 days) the effigies of the King of Hades and his retinue, together with paper money and paper cars, houses, servants etc for the hungry ghost will be dispatched in a huge bonfire that concludes the ceremony. Some even have processions and parades to bring the festivities to an end.

A Monkey God medium in the procession from Brickfields's Seng Hong Temple
Kuala Lumpur 2016

A Thai medium cutting his tongue as
part of the purification ritual -
procession from Brickfields Seng Hong
Temple, Kuala Lumpur.

Sending off the King of Hades and his retinue -
Ampang Mewah 2015

So if you see offerings being placed on the roadside in July-August, or see large makeshift shelters with flags, lots of joss-sticks and loud music going on... beware for the hungry ghost are hungry out roaming at night.

The Hungry Ghost Festival month runs from 

• Aug 3rd to Aug 31st in 2016 
• Aug 22nd to Sept 19th in 2017
• Aug 11th to Sept 9th in 2018