Hungry Ghost Festival(中元节)

This is the 7th month of Chinese lunar calendar, it is Ghost Month for Taoism, but month of Joy for Buddhism. The Hungry Ghost Festival(中元节)is celebrated on the 15th night of the 7th lunar month by Chinese believer of Taoism in many countries. Penang Hockkian called it Phor Thor. Buddhist also celebrated the festival, they called it Ulambana. The 15th day of 7th month is the festival of Buddha's joyful day. In Tang Dynasty, it was reported that both Taoists and Buddhist celebrated the two festivals together. It is also known as Chinese Halloween by some. The 2009 festival is on September 2nd of the 7th month which is between August 19th to September 18th 2009.

This is the time , when the street in Penang suddenly having the Chinese opera stages build up at the street; the Chinese opera of Hokkien dialect , Teochew dialect and Cantonese dialect started to appear. Most of Hokkien Chinese Opera troupe are from China, Teochew are from China or Thailand, and Cantonese may be from Hong Kong, China or local. The local Chinese opera troupe is rare now. Some street may also having puppet show, or modern dance and song troupe to celebrate at night.

























































































































































































































































For further reading of this Malaysian festival, please read the article " Ghost Festival", from www.wikipedia.org.