In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Festival(中元节/鬼节) and the seventh month known as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits come out of the underworld and go back home to visit the living. In Northern China, people call this festival 中元节(Hungry Ghost Festival), July 15th in traditional China lunar year, but in Southern China, we just simply call it 鬼节(Ghost Festival), and it is July 14th in Chinese lunar calendar(why not the same day? I don’t know). People say that in the evening the ghosts and spirits in the underworld will come back home… Oh, that just what they say.

In this area, Nanning Guangxi, the tradition here is eating ducks in this day. Roast duck, fried duck, braised duck, lemon duck, beer duck… wow, we have so many way to make a duck dish. Why eat duck? well, I am not sure my answer is right. One way of saying is this: If those ghosts and spirits go to underworld(or come back home for a visit), there is a river they have to go across. In Ghost Festival there are too many spirits go over the only bridge on that river, make it too crowded, so that is why we pick the duck(what? to be a ship? is it another unique Guangxi or Nanning tradition? er, maybe that is what the story means). One thing is certain that this tradition makes the duck’s price become the most expesive all the year around. I still hear some old tradition taboo about the Ghost Festival. They say that during the Ghost Festival people should not go swim, they say that the underworld is recruiting new members these days, you will easily get drowning if you go swimming in the river. Well I feel it is funny but that is what a lot of people say, so…don’t go swimming in these days!

Nanning lemon duck

For me the difference between QingMing Festival is we don’t sweep ancestral grave in this day. But we still burn incense and joss paper with traditional national etiquette to offer sacrifices to the soul of ancestors. In the evening, on many strees in Nanning, you can see people burning joss papers and imitation money(wow these paper money look like the real RMB…) to the ancestors. You can see many burning joss sticks around some trees too.

I know that in other part of China there must be different kinds of traditions, but this is what I do in Ghost Festival.