A stroke of genius, this deliberate deed has a timely benefit to prepare us for the effects of the haze we will experience in the upcoming months. When the haze arrives we would have already coached our lungs for the eventual corruption not dissimilar to the athletes training tirelessly for the Olympics.
For those unfamiliar to the Hungry Ghosts Festival, the Chinese believed that during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, ghosts are released from Hell to roam the land of the living. As such believers will take this opportunity to burn offerings to honour them. In doing so, one golden rule is broken: You can do whatever you want, as long as you do not inconvenience me in anyway. SORRY, FAIL!!!
Amidst the watery red eyes, incessant coughing and menstrual-mucus leakages, it amazes me, personally, once again how an age-old, obsolete and flawed belief would still appeal to so many. Here are some ways which I think the concept is illogical. (IMO Belief = Faith = Bullcrap)
1 Earth is full. Not the ‘car park full’ kind of full but the ‘I’m Takeru Kobayashi and I can gulp down 53 hotdogs in 12 minutes and I’m full’ full. With the number of people (rather Chinese people) that have died over the past few millennia, one can only fail to imagine the number of ghosts in existence. Even if one were to argue that the concept of Hell could be multi-dimensional, releasing the ghosts to our one-dimensional world in one go would technically be analogous to piling the planet in a mile-high stack of apparitions. Sorry we really do not have that much space.
2 Reincarnation. Another noteworthy explanation, in a nut shell, reincarnation simply refers to the ‘recycling of souls’. The soul would be continuously reborn until one reaches Nirvana. There major flaw with this theory is that the world’s population is higher than ever now. Hell cannot keep up with the climbing birth rates. Departures > Arrivals is bad. Hell is either empty, which defeats the purpose of the festival or nobody is attaining Nirvana.
3 Burning of offerings. Logically, at best, only 4 generations of your relatives would remember you after you die, barring you being extremely famous or influential. Unless there is a deposit savings plan in Hell, please be exceptionally frugal as those offerings would have to last an eternity. One idea would be to start burning for yourself every year. When you die you would be the wealthiest ghost with no need to rely on your descendants. Burn stuff that you want! Be creative! Space shuttle (don’t forget the astronaut), atomic bombs, hordes of servants (naked of cause), dinosaurs… you get the idea.
4 Ghosts. To believe that one have to exist as a ghost after one is dead is pathetic. All of us would want to believe that we are all-so-important and after we die, we will return to haunt the living. Ask yourself, do you really want to float for eternity after death? I’ll probably be amused for awhile, for around 5 seconds, and then after that what? No thank you sir, I’ll pass.
IMO this is just another ‘a-dolla-in-da-boxa’ scam. All in all, I would summarise this with these words: Venerable Shi Ming Yi.
Oh btw, on a totally unrelated note: Nelson, you are my hero.
