Hungry Ghost Festival Begins
By Lauren Mack, About.com Guide   July 31, 2011
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The Hungry Ghost Festival kicks off midnight Saturday with lantern lighting and dragon dances at Lao Da Gong, a temple in Keelung, a port city in northern Taiwan.
Lauren Mack / About.com
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The Ghost Month (鬼月, Guǐ Yuè) has begun and kicked off at the stroke of midnight Saturday. Ghost Day, Sunday, starts off the month-long Hungry Ghost Festival (中元節, Zhōng Yuán Jié) in which ancestors are worshipped daily and a variety of traditional rites are held.

It is believed that during the festival, the gates of hell are flung open and the ghosts and spirits of ancestors come to visit the living. Offerings of food, burning of incense and paper money and paying homage to ancestors are meant to alleviate the suffering of the deceased.

The Ghost Month is one of the most important holidays in Chinese Culture. The festival officially begins at midnight on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. In Taiwan, the occasion is marked by a ceremonial opening of the gates of the Lao Da Gong, a temple in Keelung, a port city in northern Taiwan.

Thousands of lanterns with the names of ancestors are subsequently lit. Then, thousands of firecrackers are detonated as traditional dragon dances are held in front of the temple amid thousands of red firecracker wrappers and heavy smoke from the fireworks, incense and paper money. It is a sight to behold.

Learn more about the Hungry Ghost Festival and check back for more festival updates throughout August.

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