What does ghost festival mean....

Ghost festivals are festivals associated with ghosts, festivals that honor ghosts.

Ghosts are an extension of life during the time of human obscurity. Eastern and Western cultures have slightly different concepts of the extension of life, but the death of a human being as a ghost has always been the mainstream of ghost culture.

Ghost festivals are divided between Chinese and Western cultures. In China, there are many ghost festivals, such as July 30th, Ching Ming Festival, March 3rd, October 1st, etc. In the West, there are Mexican ghost festivals. In the West, there are ghost festivals such as the Mexican Ghost Festival, but the most famous one is Halloween.

The Chinese ghost festival is different from the Western ghost festival "Halloween", the modern "Halloween" has almost become a special meaning of carnival, which itself does not have the function of remembering ancestors.

The Chinese Mid-Yuan Ghost Festival is more serious and filial piety, and produces a lot of taboos, such as in the Ghost Festival, can not go to the river alone, so as not to be dragged down by the ghost of the drowned, and become its scapegoat; to do the project, the day can not start laying the foundation stone, the stores and factories do not choose to open the day as the opening day, and so on.

Expanded Information:

Chinese is a country that honors the ghosts and gods, and there are four major ghost festivals in a year, namely, the third day of March, the Ching Ming Festival, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and the first day of October. first of October.

The annual Ghost Festival in July is a typical product of multicultural "mix and match", which is not only the folk festival of ghosts, but also the Taoist Mid-Yuan Festival and the Buddhist Bon Festival, making it a unification of the three streams of Taoism, Buddhism and monasticism.

In the Taoist discourse, the day of July 15 is known as "Zhongyuan Festival". Due to the official promotion of the Tang Dynasty, the three yuan days, namely the Upper, Middle and Lower yuan days, were gradually stereotyped and became the three yuan festivals for praying to the Goddess of Mercy. On this day, the emperor would lead a hundred officials to participate in the festival ceremony.

Superior Yuan Festival on the 15th day of the first month, the first full moon of the year, the earth returns to spring; on the 15th day of the 7th month, the Middle Yuan Festival, the ancestors are worshipped; and on the 15th day of the 10th month, the Lower Yuan Festival, the Cold Snacks are eaten in honor of the wise men and women. Since the Tang Dynasty, the official government pardoned sins on the 15th day of the 7th month, it gradually became a folk festival after the Tang and Song dynasties. Folk engaged in some rituals on this day to save the so-called lonely souls and ghosts.

After the introduction of Buddhism, Buddhists also held a Buddhist ceremony on this day, called the "Bon Festival". It is said that Shakyamuni's disciple, Meilian, whose mother loved money and hated monks, was beaten into an evil spirit after her death, and Meilian, according to Buddha's instructions, prepared a hundred flavors of fruits and fruits into a basin on this day and made offerings to monks in ten directions, so as to make her mother get out of the realm of evil spirits and ascend to heaven.

This act coincided with the Chinese tradition, and thus the Mid-Yuan and Bon festivals were passed down at the same time.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Ghost Festival

People's Daily Online - "Ghost Festival" is a typical multi-cultural product