In addition to offering sacrifices and burning paper, you can also celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival this way

You can put out river lanterns, watch ghost movies during the Ghost Festival, etc.

The Hungry Ghost Festival, commonly known as July Half, is a folk festival in early autumn to celebrate the harvest and reward the earth. As China's urbanization level increases, the custom of the Hungry Ghost Festival has evolved from offering sacrifices to ancestors to remembering ancestors and respecting ancestors with filial piety. At the same time, a series of taboos and stories emerged.

Taboos such as not calling other people’s names on the Ghost Festival, not going out alone late at night, and not taking photos at night are unreasonable from the perspective of Ma Zhe and the core socialist values. As for not eating tributes and not picking up paper money on the roadside, it may be more to avoid unnecessary troubles, such as a bad stomach.

However, the protagonist this time is not the horror stories that happened during the Ghost Festival or the associations surrounding the customs of the Ghost Festival, but about those who did not dare to take risks but still had relevant experiences. Extremely caring, a Hungry Ghost Festival experience for cowards.

>>>People's joys and sorrows are not the same, except for fear

As the saying goes, the more unknown things there are, the wider the scope of taboos, so the most ignorant and fearless period in life It's like childhood. Although I had not yet come into contact with the toilet joke of "red hands, green hands and big white hands".

However, I am still full of awe for the toilet that can absorb filth and debris, so much so that when I was a child, whenever I had abdominal pain, I would rather go home than go to a public place, for fear that I would not be able to see it. The hole at the end sucked me in and kept me company with shit and piss.

After entering elementary school, I learned more and more words, but the horror elements I was exposed to were still quite scarce. Perhaps the author was afraid that readers would not be able to understand the mystery through his "gorgeous" vocabulary, so whether it was The story theme and plot twist are both quite straightforward. There are no complicated rules, backgrounds across eras, and rhetoric. Most of the places where the stories take place are closely related to primary school life.

For example, the "Toilet Cleaner's Headache Incident" seemed to be a well-known campus legend at the time: a hazy figure, a dark place and a "duang scalp" were seen through the crack of the door. ~duang" The sound of hitting the ground was indeed enough for me to drink a pot at that time.

Unfortunately, the size of the primary school at that time could barely accommodate all the students. There was not much space left for the health room, the music classroom with a wooden piano (the teacher at that time used either an electronic keyboard or an accordion) or a biology classroom. . Since there is no suitable soil, it is impossible for "campus ghost stories" to take root and sprout, such as the skeleton running wild in the health room.

The "Moonlight" that plays for no reason at midnight in the music classroom and the biological specimens that can grant students' wishes are all strange stories that are suitable for spreading in the mouths of elementary school students. teacher.

Perhaps there are no ghosts who want to stay here, either, such as the computer teacher who crazily emphasizes wearing shoe covers in the multimedia classroom and the school doctor who threatens to give you a shot in the butt if you don’t leave after seeing through your pretending to be sick.

Although there is no campus taboo about "passing from senior to junior", primary school students who are considered annoying always like to cause trouble for themselves. The most common one is to bring various comic magazines to school. The comics are too thick and too public, so the overall cost-effectiveness is not high. "Yilin" and "Youth Digest" are too high for primary school students.

In the end, only "Story Club" and various collections of ghost stories are left. To this day, I can no longer remember exactly what kind of "horrifying" story was described in that book at that time, but the scene of my deskmate with her hair loose and the experience of me sitting on the floor laughing with her are still fresh in my memory.

>>>It seems that even ghosts must abide by customs

Even though the Hungry Ghost Festival has a certain status in the field of traditional folk customs, compared with the Qingming Festival, which has equivalent functions, Still slightly inferior. Thanks to the intensity and direction of publicity and the influence of the holiday, Tomb-Sweeping Day has a higher status in the minds of the public.

This is why the Tomb-Sweeping Festival always comes to mind when everyone talks about tomb-sweeping and offering sacrifices. As for the Ghost Festival, if that day happens to be a weekend, then the plan for that night is most likely to be Jingma or a bloody battle.

Probably because a family becomes more courageous when they are together, so no one pays too much attention to the time every night during the Hungry Ghost Festival.

However, as I grew older, I spent more and more time outside, and my inner desire for unknown things also continued to increase. This later evolved into a habit that everyone acquiesced to - watching ghost movies during the Ghost Festival.

Since there was no so-called online TV at that time, all the ways to obtain resources were through guidance from Tieba guys or trying your luck on search engines. Although the process of finding a movie was very bumpy, the spirit of seeking knowledge and the indomitable tenacity were particularly outstanding at this moment. In short, during that period of time, the movies with the lowest resolution of 480P filled the vacancy in the brain for horror elements.

We naturally don’t have the guts to taint horror movies such as "The Old Corpse in the Mountain Village", "Two Eyes" and "The Fierce List" that netizens are talking about. An action movie with horror elements with modern values. Movies such as the "Mr. Zombie" series, the live-action version of "A Chinese Ghost Story" and "The Night of the Night" are the first choice for cowardly audiences.

While the spiritual world is fully satisfied, customs or habits that were not taken seriously before have also changed subtly. For example, they have been asked not to insert chopsticks into rice since they were young, but it is difficult to dispel the doubts in the children's minds with a little knowledge. Until they see Lin Zhengying doing it, they will put three bowls of rice with three sticks of incense on the altar.

Only then did I realize the meaning behind this approach. At the same time, this behavior raises another problem: the definitions of dumping rice are slightly different in different places. Customs such as whether the rice is raw or cooked; whether the operation steps are done upside down; whether to insert one or three chopsticks; and whether to offer sacrifices before the funeral or after the burial. It seems that even if you become a ghost, you still have to follow the local customs.

>>>Then there was no more

Later on, we had less and less time to watch movies together, and this activity came to an abrupt end inadvertently. It is the inheritance of the custom of paying homage. After experiencing the death of a loved one or the unexpected death of a friend, the only two days left to properly express emotions are Qingming Festival and Hungry Ghost Festival.

In the past, if you wanted to burn some paper for your relatives and friends, you would find a place to place a paper burning altar with the twelve zodiac signs based on Feng Shui or array diagrams. Family members need to choose the corresponding jar according to the zodiac sign of the sacrifice object, and choose when to start burning paper according to the time of death. If you are not particular about it, just find a funeral parlor facing the general direction and you can start. As for the custom of placing river lanterns, the dry climate in the north does not have such conditions.

The things burned are actually different. Those who want to show their attitude will buy native paper printed with gold and silver foil, and fold them into gold and silver ingots at home. If you want to save money, buy banknotes or silver dollars that imitate modern currency. The banknotes should also have words such as "Mingtong Bank" and "Tiandi Bank" printed on them. It seems that foreign friends want to burn some paper for their families. Satan and Jesus really don’t necessarily know the foreign exchange from China.

Since everyone at that time considered themselves a rough guy, the process could be as simple as possible. Paper is the most common printed currency bought on the roadside during annual festivals. The place to burn paper is to find a roadside with few people and draw a circle with branches to avoid being taken away by others. He just burned and burned until he looked up and saw that no one was around, and then he realized that today seemed to have passed, and he didn't know if he had received the money.

>>Do you know if there are ghosts in the world?

After the paper burning, there was no such thing as the legendary friend entrusting him with a dream, but the next day there were circles all over the street. The circles and dark marks left by burning banknotes also reminded me of the experience last night. In fact, according to tradition, this circle cannot be stepped on, but there are circles all over the street that people cannot avoid, so it doesn't matter if they step on too many.

A good friend in middle school once commented on the relationship between humans and ghosts: If people become ghosts after death, then people should not be afraid of ghosts. Because if he kills you, you can still bully him back after becoming a ghost. Looking at my brother, who is as big as three of me, I thought, what if I can't beat him even if I become a ghost?

With the development of the times, the Hungry Ghost Festival has gradually changed from a day of sacrifice to a grand event on the Internet. Countless people have written about the supernatural events they have experienced and the moments when they caught horses, and there are still people talking to the air in the streets and alleys about the changes in the world over the years. As for whether there are ghosts in the world, who really cares?