I gave my French housemate Gregory Hérail the very happening Singaporean movie titled 881. The movie is a musical-comedy drama based on the ‘Getai’ (literally ‘song stage’ in Chinese) scene in Singapore that occurs during the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Decided to upload some pictures on what it is like during the month long Hungry Ghost Festival.
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- Smokey morning…
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- Smokey days…
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- Paper money tossed in the air
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- An eerie sight at night…
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- Gate guardians overlooking offerings
The Hungry Ghost Festival involves lots of burning of joss sticks, paper maids, paper bungalows, paper clothes and offerings such as biscuits, fruits etc. to deities, wandering spirits & ancestors. It is believed that whatever we burn will reach our ancestors (if this is the case, I’m guessing it is a lot greener and foresty in the underworld considering how jungles are being burnt in Indonesia). It is a rather smokey, and at times, eerie scene.
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- Simple offerings of biscuits, fruits and sweets.
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- No idea what these are… paper coins?
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- Hell Bank Note
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- Cool offerings, roasted pig, poker etc. outside a shop.
Paper ‘money’ are tossed in the air to pass money or other things to the wandering spirits. For some strange reason, some people are shouting ‘HUAT AH’ (get rich ah!) as they toss paper money in the air. I doubt the shouting of getting rich was part of the original intention of the tradition…it is perhaps a ‘Uniquely Singapore’ thing now. As you can see from the hell bank note, inflation must be quite bad in the underworld. $10,000 notes are pretty common. Missing you Gregory! Please visit SIngapore soon with Sophie! 🙂
Albert Tay 