'Hungry Ghost Festival', Zhongyuan Jie

After Chinese New Year, the annual Hungry Ghost Festival (Zhong Yuan) is perhaps the next most popular celebration among the Chinese.

It began in the Age of Fragmentation as the Ullambana (Yulanpeng) feast on the 15th day (full moon) of the 7th lunar month, held to commemorate the Buddhist legend of Moggallana (Mulian), who descended to hell to save his deceased mother's soul. The feast was held to give food to pretas, or Hungry Ghosts - spirits who had been reborn in hell because of their misdeeds and suffered from thirst and hunger there. This corresponded with pre-Buddhist Chinese views of the afterlife, in which offerings could be made to the dead in the Underworld in the form of food or other items.

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To those who actually read my blog, I must apologize for the long silence. So what have I been up to during this period of silence you may ask?

Well, first of all I was caught with the korean drama bug - the current 'hot' drama was the korean version of 'F4'. I must say the cast are all so beautiful and the story line is so romantic. So romantic in fact that it's hard to believe such characters exist in real life.