Hungry Ghost Festival in Asia

Hungry Ghost Festival in Asia

…the 7 year old sleepy boy went to go to the kitchen for a glass of water when he was taken aback, shocked to see a black shadowy figure on the outside right beside the window panes in the kitchen….

I must be a bit ignorant (or just poor in Geography) as I did not know that the Vietnamese also celebrated Hungry Ghost Festival. They celebrated with other Taoist or Buddhist followers from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and even China have observed the age old tradition of paying respect to the death. These followers believe that the souls of the departed are freed from the Gates of Hell and given a month to roam earth realm during the 7^th lunar month.

Joss Sticks and Food for the Dead Souls

Trang was only 7 year old when his parents thought it was best and much safer that he and his younger sister went to live temporarily with their grandmother place at a rural farm area in Vietnam. That was during the Vietnam War between the south and north Vietnam in the late seventies.

Trang’s parents decided to move him and his sister to their grandmother’s farm and so happened it was during the Hungry Ghost Festival. One night Trang suddenly woke up in the middle of the night at his Grandma’s one-storey farm house. His mouth and his throat was parched, realizing that his mother was back in Saigon to be with her husband and his grandma was fast asleep in the next room, Trang decided to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

The dining room was located beside Trang and his younger sister’s bedroom and the kitchen was directly behind that. The old hand sink in the kitchen with closed glass window panels was set above the basin. Half asleep Trang slowly walked past the dining room and onto the kitchen when he was stunned to see a black shadowy man-like figure out side in the frosted glass panel in the kitchen. He was not sure whether to scream or shout to warn his grandma about the intruder.