鬼節後話 - The Closing of the Underworld's Gate

Today starts the 8th month of the lunar year which means the "Hungry Ghost Month" is finally over for this year. :)

I no longer need to look over my shoulders to check whether a paranormal being is following me home. :D

I was gonna take some pictures of the offering ritual and write about this major festival back on the hungry ghost day, but Mrs. LaBean said it's unlucky to do such a thing during the ghost month, so I wait till now! :D

But, the little disobedient LaBean in me took over me and I still managed to take some pictures of different people doing the rituals. :)

This picture is taken near my home. The local people would hire some sort of priests to help them with the rituals.

These flags are mostly the priests banners, telling both the living and the dead to anticipate the event.




This is another banner telling the people the public ritual area and the duration it would open for use.







The construction is taking place for the make shift temple / shrine so people can give their offerings to the ghosts.







It's actually just a make shift tent made of bamboo and tin sheets. But inside it has different figures of Chinese deities and nameless plague for the nameless hungry ghosts.




















They even have a paper ship as an offering. Legend has it that to get back into the underworld, you have to cross a river, so the boat comes in handy. :D
And you can see there are 2 priests getting ready in the shrine.

This is the shrine at night. Quite brightly lit, but still eerie. Is the person sitting in the front a living or a ghost?......







There are other locations with these kind of rituals going on also. Here are some pictures I took near my work.





If you are interested in reading more about this festival, you can go here. There are lots of different ghostly stories associated with this festival. :P