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Showing posts from September, 2012

The Understanding of Seventh Month Prayers and its activities

Lunar 7th Month Festival to any Chinese descendant used to be an annual event for ancestors’ worship. But, my new neighbour who was shifted last month seem to be busy than usual. They were originally migrated from mainland China and being told by their acquaintance that to offer joss papers every day for wandering spirits during that month. Its good to follow the tradition for 7th month prayers. However, it is also fundamentally for people to know the meaning and purpose rather than to follow blindly. In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Zhong Yuan Festival 中元節 and the whole of seventh month is also commonly known as the Ghost Month, in which ghosts and wandering spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, revisit a cosmopolitan world from the lower realm. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths. Activit