Spiritual belief is just one aspect of Hungry Ghost Festival - rituals for the seventh lunar month can be made more progressive and socially responsible, says writer Desiree Koh.
, when tormented spirits are released from purgatory into the mortal realm.
On the first day of the Hungry Ghost Festival, we helped her make our own offerings and burn paper effigies replicating material luxuries like clothes, mahjong sets and toiletries, to these “good brothers and sisters” from another world. By appeasing them, we warded off bad luck, as long as we were on our best behaviour.
And that’s why the festival is also an inferno of disgruntled sentiments from annoyed resignation to a 2015 Change.org petition asking for Hungry Ghost rituals to be banned. Smoky odours and soot find their way into flats and linger for weeks. Bits of ash land in kopitiam diners’ food. Rats and other pests help themselves to leftovers. Cleaners work triply hard to clean public spaces.
For several years, my dad and his friends organised auction banquets, donating proceeds to a different charity each year. These were full of karaoke-fuelled merry-making, and we filled tables with expatriate friends eager for full cultural immersion. Like locals wise to the game, they also bagged auction wins from Singapore Sweep tickets to kitchen appliances.
There’s definitely a nostalgic charm to haphazard splays of colourful effigies, elaborately decorated joss candles and the greatest hits of Chinese deliciousness everywhere.
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