Anxious to get past our 'month of hungry ghosts'

No one ever mentioned it, something that might have helped a bit in appeasing angry Hong Kong Chinese, or at least made them aware that we do know something about sensitivity, especially with regards their culture to which we've been partially privy all these centuries. As neighbors that have been of a relatively weak state since pre-Spanish times, we continue to soak up foreign input and influences much like a tabula rasa. Thus have we adopted many names for our flora and food items after the Peninsulares and Mexicanos, and continue to make a chop suey of all our menus, including those for ritzy housing and commercial developments, e.g. Canyon Woods to Portofino, Avida to Bellagio to Brittany Bay. For the past month, experienced real estate agents have known how it would be a slow and luckless four weeks from August 10 to September 7, when hallowed beliefs — you may call it superstition — among Chinese and Chinoy investors disallow any major move, including the signing of contracts. What's called the Hungry Ghost Month is nearly past. This is the supposedly dangerous seventh month in the eastern lunar calendar observed by Buddhists and Taoists and from Singapore and Malyasia to Taiwan and Japan. And of course most Chinese, although the younger generation now appears to just go along and humor the old folks' scaredy-cat tales of hungry spirits from the underworld. Old people don't want grandchildren born in August or any time within the seventh lunar month. Weddings and business launches are deferred, as they may bring bad luck. Even whistling could draw souls to one’s home. Going swimming is considered bad as an evil ghost may cause you to drown. Travel is avoided. The Month of the Hungry Ghosts is seen as the most dangerous time of the year, since malevolent spirits seek to capture souls. Go Wiki or Google and you'll find more about this tradition: "During this month, the gates of hell are opened up and ghosts are free to roam the earth where they seek food and entertainment. These ghosts are believed to be ancestors of those who forgot to pay tribute to them after they died, or those who were never given a proper ritual send-off. "... Family members offer prayers to their deceased relatives, offer food and drink and burn hell bank notes and other forms of joss paper. ... Families also pay tribute to other unknown wandering ghosts so that these homeless souls do not intrude on their lives and bring misfortune. ...(I)f any death is reported it will be pointed out that it is due to disobedience. "A large feast is held for the ghosts on the fourteenth day of the seventh month, when people brings samples of food and place them on an offering table to please the ghosts and ward off bad luck." That large feast marks what's known as the Hungry Ghost Festival, which on this year fell on August 24, some say on August 23. And that was the day when an apparent congruence of elements of ill fortune descended upon us, right across our monument to our national hero whose mainland ancestor hails from Fujian, China. Apart from the conceded bungling, there was misfortune all around, starting with a cavalier under-estimation of the situation, so much so that officials attended to their palates just as the crisis suddenly climaxed into an atrocious embarrassment beamed worldwide. In truth, everyone was at fault, including us. All these years we allowed our police to descend to such levels, to become mulcters, hulidap practitioners, dolts who think that by taking a tourist bus and its human contents hostage, would then stand a chance to gain ridiculous demands, or brother cops in more ways than one who mess up negotiations by prizing a firearm more than lives already at risk. Snipers who couldn't foretell an impending catastrophe, the absence of official face value right on the scene and which might have been able to corral media into a modicum of responsible behavior, a veritable Keystone Cops routine, a string of bad or weak decisions — all of these came to place to slam one big pie on our collective faces as a people. Do we join the chorus of blame or toss it simply in the direction of kamalasan or misfortune? After all, many of us had previously noted how August has been a bloody month in our contemporary history, from the Plaza Miranda bombing to Ninoy's assassination to disastrous coup attempts, all within the last four decades. Might a spokesman have thought of mentioning that the fated evening was the peak of the Month of Hungry Ghosts, that malevolence was in the air, and that again it was unfortunate that we were hapless on the ground? Other Wiki entries have it: "It is believed that the day of the Hungry Ghost, which falls on the 14th day of the 7th month, is when the gates of Heaven and Hell open up, releasing many spirits from all these realms to freely visit those in the human realm. Some are said to pay visits to their descendants, and some are just spirits trapped in between realms, unable to move on.

 This year, the Hungry Ghost month runs from the 10th August to the 7th September; the actual Hungry Ghost Day falls on the 23rd August." "The last day of the Ghost Month is when the Gates of Hell are closed up again. The chants of Taoist priests inform the spirits that it’s time to return, and as they are confined once again to the underworld, they let out an unearthly wail of lament. To make sure all the hungry ghosts find their way back to hell, people flow water lanterns and set them outside their houses. These lanterns are made by setting a lotus flower-shaped lantern on a paper boat. The lanterns are used to direct the ghosts back to the underworld, and when they go out, it symbolizes that they have found their way back." On September 7, might we see paper boat lanterns set down to float from the Palace side of the Pasig, from the hands of our highest officials? It would make a dramatic, telegenic gesture — of kinship with our Chinese forbears, of acknowledgment of traditions of appeasement. But it is doubtful that it will happen. Paper boats in relation to Malacañang have had a bad precedent, from the first months of a previous president. Could it take place on Manila Bay, right behind the Independence Grandstand? Likely not as well, since PNoy's advisers lack even the imagination to tell him that it's been two months and he still has to step out of Luzon in any effort to consult with what is, after all, a national constituency. Fear of flying? Fear of the dangers of Hungry Ghost Month? Or is it simply lack of fresh ideas and initiatives, so that it may just happen that our President travels abroad soon, without even first visiting Cebu or Davao or Cagayan de Oro or Bacolod, etc.? Had any such consultative trips been done a few days after Ghost Day a fortnight ago, why, it might have reminded a certain Donald Tsang that our President attends to a country much larger than any prime city, and that matters of national governance have to be addressed other than sifting through the rubbish of serial misfortune that struck a capital. And the rest of us might not have plunged along towards a nadir, a deepening concern over some sense of drift or stasis. Maybe at certain times, in lieu of decisiveness or a go-go-go default mode, one can best fall back on trusting superstition, if not instincts — just so one arrests a downslide in terms of public perception. -- GMANews.TV Illustration by Analyn Perez