Second half of the year is a festive season in almost any part of world . There was hari raya , ganesh chaturthi ,next is mid autumn festival , Diwali and Christmas .
Although this post is late , hungry ghost festival ended in august but still better late then never .It's a Chinese festival and the major ethnic group here are Chinese so this festival celebration is pretty evident .
According to Chinese belief the gates of hell are opened during this time and hungry ghost will be set free and they will wander around earth . So in order to please them offering of food , fake notes , drinks etc are made .
And the offering are always kept outside so that the ghosts spot them and don't enters the houses to trouble the residents!!
The festival was celebrated now and then whole of previous month. Every other week we would see offerings like above near our blocks . And the best place to get a glimpse of such things is at the heart of the community centers and HDB .
I always see old and middle age folks burning the fake notes near this container(which are kept there throughout the year) , it's pretty obvious that the younger generation is not much into these kind of beliefs .
I assume this is also a part of the offerings . We were curious to try it out as we thought that it might be some new fruit but it felt and looked artificial so we backed out .
Then there are getai shows organized to please the ghost .They start building the tent previous night and next night we could see some traditional Chinese dramas . Well the one that happened in our block their were no audience !!!! Most of the people were busy eating which was also arranged as a part of whole show I guess .
We also saw that the front rows were always empty , it's only later that I came to know that those seats are for the ghosts . The getai shows are mainly organized to please the ghosts .
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