SINGAPORE: As a young child, my mother used to count down until the 15th day of the sixth lunar month, when tormented spirits are allowed to enter the mortal world after being cast out of hell.
She cautioned against swimming because unhappy ghosts might pull us under and away. She pleaded,” Please come home by midnight, but vengeful monsters bent on wreaking tragedy on the living don’t pick on us.” Never, ever step on a roadside where someone is offering them food and papers because hell has no wrath like scorned souls in agony.
We assisted her in making our own products to these” great brothers and sisters” from another world on the first day of the Hungry Ghost Festival, burning paper statues that resembled material luxuries like clothing, mahjong pieces, and amenities. As long as we were being polite, we avoided bad fortune by appeasing them.
In comparison to what occurs throughout Singapore, my mother’s Hungry Ghost festivals are mild. According to the myth that offerings may rise annually to express greater thanks to ancestors and to get greater blessings from the deceased, report effigies have grown larger and flashier in recent years, including Louis Vuitton bags, the newest iPhones, pot machines, 50-inch smart TVs and condo blocks.
You had better give at least three this time if two bundles of joss report” money” were burned last year for the spirits’ investing money. To ensure that liquor tuck in to their hearts’ content, food choices along HDB flat hallways, housing estate social areas, and roadside are left out as long as possible.
And for that reason, the event is also a cacophony of resentful feelings, ranging from irritated surrender to 2015 Change. org petition calling for the outlawing of Hungry Ghost rites. Dust and smokey odors enter apartments and stay there for months. portions of the kopitiam diners’ foods are dust land. Animals and other parasites consume crumbs on their own. Cleansers put in a lot of effort to clean open areas.
During the eighth lunar month, some specialists have observed an increase in incidences of respiratory problems and eye irritations. According to a 2015 study from Nanyang Technological University, the amount of jo paper burned during this time may increase the pollution standards score by up to 60 %.
Is it time to take chilling precautions?