Every so often my parents would always have these celebrations where we lay out all this food on the dinner table, bring out the incense, and basically set dinner for our ancestors. This past Saturday we did just that. When I asked them what the occasion was they responded with "Chinese Halloween." For some reason I doubted that was the real name, but it was their best attempt at explaining it to me. So I was curious to learn more
I decided to try my chances at Google. I typed in "Chinese Halloween" thinking it was impossible to even find. But guess what... I got 21,000,000 results and who was on there that immediately caught my eye? Wikipedia.. I know some do not trust wiki because it can be written by anyone, but hey, everything is written by somebody that you don't know anyways. So I gave it a try.
Wikipedia actually calls it Ghost Festival, but because of the idea of ghost and spirits it is easy to compare it to the American holiday Halloween. Thus, we end up with Chinese Halloween. However, this Halloween is not the same.
First of all, it falls on the 15th day of the 7th month on the Lunar calendar, which by the way, happens to be today. It is believed that on this day the three realms: Heaven, Hell, and the Living are open. Thus, the deceased are able to come and visit the living. The living, that's us, prepare food for out lost ancestors. There is also the burning of incense and joss paper (image at top). Joss papers are sheets of paper that are burned for the deceased that usually represent money or gold. From what my parents have told me we burn the paper to give to our ancestors as a way to wish them a wealthy afterlife. Back in the good old days, my parents used to buy and fold the paper money, but I think the fire department got called about us so we stopped.
Here is the article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiu_Chow
Wikipedia actually calls it Ghost Festival, but because of the idea of ghost and spirits it is easy to compare it to the American holiday Halloween. Thus, we end up with Chinese Halloween. However, this Halloween is not the same.
First of all, it falls on the 15th day of the 7th month on the Lunar calendar, which by the way, happens to be today. It is believed that on this day the three realms: Heaven, Hell, and the Living are open. Thus, the deceased are able to come and visit the living. The living, that's us, prepare food for out lost ancestors. There is also the burning of incense and joss paper (image at top). Joss papers are sheets of paper that are burned for the deceased that usually represent money or gold. From what my parents have told me we burn the paper to give to our ancestors as a way to wish them a wealthy afterlife. Back in the good old days, my parents used to buy and fold the paper money, but I think the fire department got called about us so we stopped.
Here is the article from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiu_Chow
No comments:
Post a Comment