July 9, 2024
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Hungry Ghosts
Sometimes you feel like a lean how… Sometimes you don't
Sorry, I have hardly touched this Xanga blog. Does anyone even look at this blog? It feels so lonely here. I feel like I'm talking to a blank wall coming here.
What's up with me? I'm still in pain with severe osteoarthritis of the left hip and knee. Need a walker wherever I go. Yes...I am disabled.My world is so limited. It takes a lot for me to go anywhere. I have to plan how I will transport myself to and back. How much walking will be involved as well as the logistics.
It's easy to forget I've got this condition. When I talk I think that I am normal and can walk and stand for long periods like before, but when I come to my senses, I remember that I can't walk.
I got a commission by the Chinese Culture Center to do their second annual Hungry Ghost Festival. I caught this festival twice while I was Hong Kong and Penang, Malaysia forty seven years ago. It is a highly spiritually charged festival.
In every neighborhood there would be an altar with a giant paper effigy of Da Shi Yeh（大士爺）， the King of Hell. Before the face of Da Shi Yeh would be covered with red paper. On the first day of the ghost month there would be a ceremony to take off the red paper to welcome the King of Hell. During the month neighborhoods all have altars, paper ghost effigies, food offerings and stages with live entertainment such as Chinese Opera, modern Chinese singing etc. for the wandering and hungry ghosts. The front row is left empty for wandering ghosts.
On the fifteenth day paper joss money, incense as well as the giant paper ghost king effigy is burnt to send him and all the ghosts back to hell/heaven till next year.
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