The annual Hungry Ghost Festival is nearly upon us. Some quarters of the Chinese community believe that during the seventh month of the lunar calendar – this year between 23 August and 21 September – the gates of hell will throw open and unleash a host of ghosts into the human realm.
These eponymous spirits are a hungry lot, and upon arrival will feed on the offerings laid by us humans. Offerings like sugar-laden cakes, breads and biscuits, as well as incinerated joss-sticks and charred joss paper, all of which leads me to suspect that these poor souls have neither insulin nor tastebuds.
Our efforts to appease the hungry ghouls go beyond just the catering of this mediocre picnic. There is also a long list of rules we must abide by during the nocturnal hours of the seventh lunar month. For instance, you shouldn’t stay out late at night, do not take any photographs, and never, ever look at your reflection in a mirror. (In other words, those dance-club female toilet selfies? They need to stop, girlfriend.)
The list goes on: don’t swim or malevolent spirits might drown you; don’t go gallivanting in odd-numbered groups because you’ll be more susceptible to supernatural harassment than when in pairs; and don’t turn around if you hear someone call your name – a true human friend in our modern world would eschew any awkward human interaction and choose to DM you from five metres away instead.
The birds and bees… and bogeymen
Despite all the trouble it entails, most people seem to enjoy the spookiness of the season. We trade seventh-month ghost stories with glee, and there’s always a particularly good haunting that “actually happened to a secondary-school classmate’s second cousin from his stepmother’s side.” (Then it has to be true, right?)
As kids, we lapped up these spooky tales and thrills with a morbid fascination. Then one scary Sunday, we’re suddenly all grown up with kids of our own, struggling to explain with scientific certainty if supernatural beings really do exist.
I reckon it’s much easier to explain the birds and bees to your kids than to rationalise for them the supernatural. With sex and procreation, we’re dealing with hard and irrefutable facts: Two married adults hug tenderly and their genuine love and respect for each other deposits a baby in the mother’s belly – hard and irrefutable facts.
But when it comes to anything supernatural, especially that of the Asian variety, parents are just not equipped with the same unassailable science. Science that might explain why Chinese vampires hop when trying to ensnare a running man (and said speedy man still doesn’t stand a chance), or why they’re always dressed in courtly Qing dynasty robes (did they not receive the cardboard Armani suits that we incinerated for them?).
Is the Ethereal for Real
A few Hungry Ghost Festivals ago, my then-six-year-old daughter and I were walking past a blazing incense bin surrounded by a strewn of food offerings and a fluttering of joss paper scraps. Little JJ then gripped my hand a wee bit tighter and asked tentatively: Are ghosts real, Papa?
With a lump in my throat, I knew that it was time for “the talk”. I sat her down gravely, and proceeded to stare at the ground, allowing the flickering flames to flap a dance of shadows on my steely gaze… and then I lunged towards her with a start and shouted “Boo!”
It frightened her terribly, but more importantly, it helped me avoid yet another peskily difficult question to which I have no good answer for. Other similar questions that I have slyly sidestepped include: did my pet terrapin go to heaven; why would that nice policeman arrest me for not eating my vegetables; and where did I learn such stellar fathering skills.
After I stopped laughing and made her promise not to tell her mother about this episode, I explained that everything we see around us are but rituals. Some are religious rituals, others might have a cultural genesis. But at the heart of it, they are all activities that a community of people participate in, as a way to reinforce shared values and beliefs. And whatever belief system we subscribe to, we should always respect these cultural and religious norms that form part of our Chinese heritage….
Then I shouted “Boo!” again! (You should’ve seen her face!)
Of course, I jest. (My wife might be reading this.) I wouldn’t jump-scare my young daughter twice in one seventh-month night – that’s just plain evil. Because unlike some parents that I’ve seen on social media, I’m not a cruel and childish caregiver.
I am, of course, referring to a recent social media trend where it was considered “lit” to frighten your own child with a ghost filter. While taking a wefie video with your unsuspecting child, the parent will apply a ghost filter that inserts a ghoulish apparition onto the screen, leading the poor boy to believe that their home is haunted by some mangled-face ghost. Screaming and crying ensue, eventually leading to nightmares, years of therapy, and possibly a superb seventh-month ghost story to trade when he’s older. (“There was this one time, my mother was actually taking a video of me when….”)
Well, as a somewhat imperfect father myself, I’m not here to judge anyone’s parenting method. Parenting is hard and we can sure use a good laugh or two (and with oodles of important Internet validation to boot). And now that these social-media savvy kids have cottoned on to the ghost-filter trick, parents need to up their game. Because you know what would be really scary? No, it’s not the loss of trust between parent and child that will lead from these pranks. Neither is it the cost of therapy for years to come.
If you really want to scare your child witless with this Internet prank, you should sit them down afterwards and ask gravely: What ghost filter?
“Boo!”
I Am Jenny's Father 
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