A Dying Tradition? The Haunting Beauty of China’s ‘Day of the Dead’

By 8 p.m. on Aug. 26, the fantastic banyan tree at the center of Boshi Village is currently surrounded by offerings. Bowls filled with fresh fruit, roasted meat, and other treats are stacked rows deep amongst the tree’s knotted roots. The air hangs close candle light and incense smoke.

Residents have actually set out the assortment of deals with as part of the Shigu celebration, a series of routines primarily kept in southern China each year that is typically compared to Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

While it’s far from widely known abroad, Shigu has actually long been among China’s essential and lively celebrations. Like the Day of the Dead, it’s a centuries-old custom to honor the departed and makes use of an abundant mix of spiritual and folk practices.

Shigu is likewise a noticeably regional event that embodies lots of special elements of Chinese culture– and specifically the culture of Chaoshan, the southern seaside area where Boshi Village is situated.

Shigu– which actually equates as “feeding the lonesome ghosts”– sees neighborhoods come together to look after the spirits of the left: making offerings, shouting Buddhist bible, and even interacting with the deceased.

It’s uncertain when the celebration initially emerged, however recommendations go back to a minimum of the Southern Song dynasty (1127– 1279). For a long period of time, the Shigu celebrations in Chaoshan drew larger crowds than any other occasion apart from Chinese New Year.

To understand Shigu’s significance, it’s required to comprehend how it suits China’s conventional cosmology. According to Confucian and Taoist practices, households have an obligation to look after the spirits of their left enjoyed ones, leaving offerings of food, fiat money, and even alcohol to guarantee they are comfy in the afterlife.

Numerous individuals pass away with no kids to care for their souls, while seafarers and soldiers frequently die far from home and their bodies are never ever returned to their home towns. If ignored, these spirits end up being “lonesome ghosts” that roam the Earth, spreading out concern and bugging the living.

The Shigu celebration is developed to avoid this. Occurring in the seventh lunar month of the standard Chinese calendar– when Yanwang, the king of hell, is stated to open evictions of the underworld– neighborhoods set out offerings for these lonesome souls, offering the starving ghosts momentary relief.

In this, Shigu varies from the Day of the Dead, which is more about households honoring their forefathers. China’s Qingming Festival in early April is possibly a more detailed comparable because sense, though its customs of tomb-sweeping and peaceful household events are rather various.

Over the centuries, the Shigu celebration has actually ended up being more intricate. Offerings are now typically accompanied by common routines that mix Buddhist and regional folk customs. (In lots of locations, the celebration is likewise called “Pudu,” a name that originates from the Buddhist idea of “universal redemption”– or providing all souls from suffering.)

In Chaoshan, numerous groups arrange “spirit-writing” events– a practice comparable to utilizing a Ouija board to interact with ghosts, other than characters are composed in sand. Others arrange processions in between regional temples and using premises, led by authorities shouting Buddhist bible.

Regional charities, on the other hand, contribute whatever from medication to caskets to individuals in requirement in mass “merit-making events.” Many notoriously, the impoverished are permitted to get the food set out for the spirits throughout a routine referred to as the “scramble for the offerings”– though nowadays the contests tend to be penetrated by a reasonable variety of travelers.

Today, Shigu is still significant throughout the Chinese-speaking world, however the events are especially main to life in Chaoshan– a reflection of the area’s rough history.

Chaoshan has long had a big population of starving ghosts. For centuries, wars and uprisings throughout the area left many individuals without a correct burial. More just recently, millions set sail from Chaoshan to look for work overseas, forming big diasporas throughout Southeast Asia and even more afield.

To look after all these roaming souls, towns and towns throughout Chaoshan still mark Shigu at the end of every summer season. The 15th day of the seventh lunar month, understood as the Zhongyuan Festival, is commonly related to as the height of the Shigu celebration, neighborhoods hold their events on various days throughout the month. Nobody makes certain how and when the dates were chosen.

In Nansha, a town near the city of Shantou, the Zhongyuan Festival events remain in full speed when Sixth Tone check outs in late August. Store owners not able to sign up with the cumulative town event established tables outside their services to set out offerings. Other villagers collect at the regional temple and ancestral hall to arrange the centerpieces.

Senior locals take charge. Some utilize speakers to blast out appeals in Chaoshan dialect, getting in touch with villagers to contribute cash and rice for the Pudu. Others fold triangular paper offerings or prepare baskets of”guyefish rice,” a staple offering utilized in regional routines.

Inside the temple, a group of females carries out an event to honor the roaming spirits– recognized passionately as guyeor lonesome senior citizens. Contributed flour, rice, cooking oil, and fruit are stacked in front of the temple for clingy villagers to gather.

At the ancestral hall, cool stacks of rice cakes, bread, treats, and baskets of”guyefish rice” are organized in a yard in front of the primary entryway. Lin Qiwei, a regional town senior, starts an event to make the offerings at 3 p.m., kneeling and shouting a sacrificial text.

“Orphaned souls without any one to declare you, come here and consume,” Lin calls. “Once you have actually consumed your fill, return each to your location; do not disrupt the living; do not terrify the kids.”

After the event comes the much-anticipated “scramble for the offerings,” where residents complete to get the specials. Regional beliefs hold that consuming food blessed by the spirits brings good luck. The routine likewise functions as a type of charity, to assist villagers who have actually fallen on difficult times.

The “scramble for the offerings” has actually ended up being questionable in current years. As the routine’s popularity has actually grown– with influencers publishing videos of the phenomenon on Chinese social networks– it has actually started to bring in big groups of outsiders, who typically crowd out those who are really in requirement.

In spite of its viral appeal, the truth is that today’s Shigu celebration is a shadow of its previous self. In the early 20th century, almost every family in Chaoshan participated in the celebrations and incense burned all month long, according to folk-custom scientist Lin Xuejin.

After 1949, the celebrations were suspended for years, as standard practices and beliefs were prevented as “feudal superstitious notions.” They gradually restored after “reform and opening-up” started in the late 1970s, however mass internal migration and breakneck financial advancement have actually likewise taken their toll.

Today, while towns throughout Chaoshan still hold Shigu, the monthlong community-wide events have actually diminished to one-off cumulative occasions on picked days, run practically totally by older citizens. Youths are significantly limited in Nansha– other than for the gaggle of influencers and developers shooting and livestreaming the occasions.

The Chinese web’s unexpected accept of Shigu can feel disconcerting. As Lin shouts his attract the lonesome ghosts before an audience primarily comprised of senior citizens, numerous drones whir overhead, waiting to record the enjoyment of the coming “scramble for the offerings.”

Residents hope the pattern can assist restore the celebration. Numerous villagers state the increase of material developers has actually motivated more youthful generations to value their regional culture more– and pressed older locals to keep arranging the events in spite of falling presence.

Fu Xingcong, a Ph.D. prospect at Beijing’s Minzu University of China studying Shigu practices in Chaoshan, informs Sixth Tone that these external forces have actually reinforced regional cultural identity and provided the decreasing custom a much-needed increase.

Back in Boshi Village, residents are doing their finest to protect the celebration in their own method. Chen, a female in her 40s, increases from the close-by city of Chaozhou to pay her aspects quickly after 8 p.m.

Seen by her teenage child, she thoroughly inserts incense penetrates her specifically ready bowls of braised goose, treated pork, and soft white rice cakes, organizes them on the ground, and after that kowtows while murmuring her dreams.

Chen, who provided just her surname, states she goes back to her ancestral town for the Shigu celebration every summer season. She moved to the city lots of years back, she still feels it’s essential to preserve this link to her old home and pass it on to the next generation.

“This was something I soaked up from youth,” Chen informs Sixth Tone. “Once you mature and get wed, it becomes your obligation to carry out these routines.”

Cunxin Charity Hall, Downtown Shantou

Nansha Village, Shantou

This short article is co-authored by Wu Huiyuan.

(Header image: At the “scramble for the offerings” in Shantou’s Nansha Village, Guangdong province, August 2026. All images by Wu Huiyuan/Sixth Tone)