This is to pay homage to old relatives! ! It’s also the Day of the Dead! ! Ghost Festival! ! ! Three major ghost festivals: Qingming Festival, July 15th, and October 1st. Notes on Ghost Festival: Avoid bringing red strings, bells, wind chimes and other things that attract ghosts, and try to avoid going out. If you encounter supernatural events such as a ghost pressing on you or a ghost hitting a wall, don't panic, focus all your attention and open your eyes. Tomb-Sweeping Festival, my country's traditional festival, see the entry "Qingming Festival". According to legend on July 15th, every year from July 1st, the King of Hell orders the gates of hell to be opened, allowing those ghosts who have been suffering and imprisoned in hell all year round to come out of hell, wander around for a short period of time, and enjoy blood and food in the world, so people call it July. As the ghost month, this month is considered unlucky, and people do not get married or move. The 15th day of the seventh lunar month every year is the Bon Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival, Magu Festival, July Half or Ghost Festival. In the past, in addition to worshiping their ancestors, people also prepared some dishes, wine, Food, gold, silver, clothing, paper, etc. were brought to the intersection to offer sacrifices to ghosts and gods. The festivals and customs included on July 15th are relatively complex. It is not only a folk ghost festival, but also a Taoist Ghost Festival, a Buddhist Obon Festival, and a combination of monks, Taoists and secular people. Taoism has the so-called Heavenly Official, Earthly Official, and Shuiguan, collectively known as the Three Officials. These three are the representatives of the Jade Emperor sent to the human world. Every year, they inspect the good and evil in the human world and report to heaven. The birthdays of the three officials are respectively the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the fifteenth day of July and the fifteenth day of October. These three days are also called Sanyuan. The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is called Zhongyuan. It is the time when local officials and school officials are pardoning sins. On this day, he will take out a thick roster and, based on the performance of gods, mortals, and animals, draw outlines and pardon sins. Exemption from prison sentence. Folks carry out some sacrificial activities on the Ghost Festival to save those lonely ghosts, which should be related to the pardon of sins from local officials. July 15th is the Bon Festival of Buddhism. The legend is the story of Mulian saving his mother. It comes from the Buddhist legend: Mulian (Mulian is a Buddhist figure and one of the ten disciples of Sakyamuni) whose mother fell into a hungry ghost. In the Tao, I live a life without enough to eat. Mulian then used his magical power to turn food into food and gave it to his mother, but her mother did not change her greed. When the food arrived, she was afraid that other evil spirits would snatch it. When the food came into her mouth, it immediately turned into charcoal and she could not eat it. pharynx. Although Maudgalyayana had supernatural powers, as a human son, he could not save his mother. He was in great pain and asked the Buddha for advice on what to do. The Buddha recited the Ullambana Sutra for him and asked him to make an Ullambana Sutra on the fifteenth day of the seventh month to sacrifice his mother. According to the instructions of the Buddha group, Maudgalyana prepared hundreds of flavors and five fruits, as well as various utensils, into basins, and offered them to the monks in the ten directions on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Only then did his mother escape from the evil ghost world and ascend to heaven. In view of this, the Buddha extended it and asked Buddhist disciples to practice filial piety with all their heart. Every year on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, they make Ullambana basins and give alms to Buddha and monks to repay their parents' kindness. The significance of the Buddhist Bon Festival coincides with the Confucian filial piety, and this day has become a ghost festival for people to pay homage to their deceased parents and ancestors. July 15th of the lunar calendar is the largest festival in the underworld - the Ghost Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival or the Bon Festival. It is one of the three important festivals in the underworld in my country. There is a folk legend that the Lantern Festival is celebrated in the human world and the Ghost Festival is celebrated in the underworld. It is said that the King of Hell will also dress up in costumes and celebrate the festival with the ghosts on that day, and let us living people bless them together, wishing that people in the other world will realize their wishes and enjoy the happiness that they have not had time to enjoy in this world. Therefore, many local communities in our country will hold activities such as offering sacrifices, visiting Buddha, cleaning tombs, reviewing flowers, appreciating flowers, and fishing to celebrate. July 15th is the day when the gates of hell are opened. Whether it is burning paper money to send blessings, holding daisies to express condolences, or offering sacrifices to ancestors on the Internet, or setting off river lanterns, people alive today miss the people in the past together, and send blessings to their ancestors together. Spiritual spontaneity is an extension of emotion and the most basic belief. And at the same time, "People who are alive should cherish every day they are alive, and don't be ashamed of society and friends, and don't be ashamed of relatives who have left forever. Because one day we will meet them, and when the time comes, you can be proud It is said that if you are a hero in the world, you must also be a ghost hero in the underworld! "Taoist "Hungry Ghost Festival" According to the cultural logic of Taoism, the time and space of a year should be divided into upper and lower yin and yang halves, and Chinese Taoism believes that there are three elements that nourish all things in the world. The basic elements are sky, earth and water. Therefore, Taoism regards the first half of the year as the Heavenly Official and the second half as the Earthly Official. What needs to be explained here is that the "official" mentioned here does not refer to the "official" of human officials, but refers to the segments in the flow of time and space, similar to the "official" in the Chinese Go game. official".

Chinese Taoism mainly originated in areas with developed agricultural civilization in China. Therefore, Chinese Taoism has always believed that the sky is mysterious and the earth is mysterious, and the earth is mysterious. That is to say, because Chinese agricultural civilization pays attention to the important role of the two elements of earth and water in all human beings, the Chinese Taoist cultural concept has always contained the "ontology" and "epistemology" of observing the world with the earth as the center and its " Methodology”. According to the Taoist worldview, Taoism customarily calls the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the "Tianguan" period (the first half of the year) the "Shangyuan Festival"; "Hungry Ghost Festival"; because the earth contains water and water affects the earth, October 15th in the middle of the second half of the year is the "Xiayuan Festival". The three elements of upper, middle and lower constitute the Taoist trinity system understanding of the world. Chinese Taoism is different from many religions in the world. Many religions in the world are the unity of God and man, or like Christianity, they focus on the "incarnation" of the Trinity, which makes religious communicators often highly deified. The purpose of Taoist missionary work in China is very clear. The communicators of Taoist teachings are not gods but human beings. Therefore, the moral ethics of Taoist teachings are "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude." For people with high intelligence, the principles of the "Tao Te Ching" are clearly explained. For those who are not intelligent enough or do not have much time to deeply reflect on their own moral and ethical construction, they write stories to explain the truth. "Education through entertainment" is the source. Taoist missionary methods in China. The "Hungry Ghost Festival" of Chinese Taoism is actually a festival to spread moral ethics, that is, to encourage people to pay attention to moral cultivation on this day. On the Hungry Ghost Festival, people who have thoughts and time will gather together to study Laozi's "Tao Te Ching", communicate with each other, meditate and reflect on themselves. For ordinary believers, Taoism has created some stories to "educate in entertainment." For example, Taoism invented a story about a man named Chen Ziqin who married the Dragon King's daughter and gave birth to three children named "Tian Guan, Di Guan, and Shui Guan" on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the fifteenth day of July, and the fifteenth day of October. This child, these "three officials" are in charge of the three tasks of blessing, pardoning sins, and relieving misfortunes in the human world. They have boundless power. They have to patrol the human world during these three days to examine whether people's moral character is good or bad. For those moral They will bless those with good qualities, otherwise, they will punish them. However, Chinese Taoism is a very tolerant religion and gives people the opportunity to change and renew themselves at any time. Therefore, the "Hungry Ghost Festival" is not just a festival to reward the good and punish the bad, but mainly a "Pardon Festival". Therefore, the "Hungry Ghost Festival" is also the "Festival of Penance" and the "Festival of Atonement" among Chinese festivals. People who have sinned during the year can use various rituals to review themselves and ask for forgiveness from heaven and earth on this day. forgive. The first day of October is called the "October Dynasty", also known as the "Ancestor Worship Festival". Since ancient times, our country has had the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors during harvest time to show filial piety and not forgetting our roots. Therefore, people also use millet to worship their ancestors on the first day of October. On the first day of October, ancestors are worshiped, including family sacrifices and tomb sacrifices, both in the north and the south. Today in many areas in Jiangnan, there is still the custom of offering sacrifices to new graves on the first day of October. The first day of October is also the first day of winter, and since then the climate has gradually become colder. People are afraid that the souls of their ancestors in the underworld will lack clothing and clothing. Therefore, in addition to general offerings such as food, incense candles, paper money, etc., there is also an indispensable offering - underworld clothing. During sacrifices, people burn Mingyi to their ancestors, which is called "sending cold clothes". Therefore, the first day of October is also called the "Shaoyi Festival". Later, in some places, the custom of "burning cold clothes" underwent some changes. Instead of burning cold clothes, people "burned baggage." People sealed many ghost papers in a paper bag and wrote the names of the recipients and senders. Name and corresponding title, this is called "baggage". It has the name of cold clothes, but not the reality of cold clothes. People think that the underworld is the same as the earth, and you can buy many things with money. Regarding the Ancestor Worship Festival, there is also a story about Cai Lun making paper and Cai Mo burning paper. When Cai Lun first invented paper, business was very good. Cai Lun's sister-in-law Huiniang asked her husband Cai Mo to learn papermaking from Cai Lun. They came back and opened a paper mill, but the paper produced by Cai Mo was of poor quality and could not be sold. The two of them were very worried. Later, Huiniang thought of a way to get out of the predicament. In the middle of the night, Huiniang pretended to die of a sudden illness. Cai Mo was heartbroken and mourned in front of her coffin. He burned the paper and cried: "I learned to make paper from my brother, but I didn't pay attention. The quality of the paper I made was so bad that it made you sick. I want to burn this paper." Turn it into ashes to relieve the hatred in your heart." After burning it, he brought some paper to burn. After burning it for a while, he heard Hui Niang shouting from the coffin: "Open the door, I'm back.

"This shocked people. They opened the coffin, and Hui Niang sang in a pretentious manner: Money can travel everywhere in the world, and paper is doing business in the underworld. If my husband didn't burn the paper, who would let me go home? Hui Niang sang. He said many times: "Just now I was a ghost, now I am a human, don't be afraid." When I arrived in the underworld, the King of Hell made me grind the mill and suffer. My husband gave me money, and many little ghosts helped me. It is true that money can make ghosts grind the mill. The third official also asked me for money. I gave him all the money, and he opened the back door of the underworld and let me back. Cai Mo pretended to be confused: "I didn't give you any money?" Hui Niang said: "The paper you burn is the money of the underworld." "After saying this, Cai Mo took a few more bundles of paper and burned them to his parents. Upon hearing this, the people present thought that burning paper was of great benefit, and they all bought paper from Cai Mo. Huiniang generously gave it to the villagers, The news spread like wildfire, and villagers from far and near came to buy the Cai family's paper and burn it for their deceased relatives. Within two days, the backlog of paper was sold out on the day Hui Niang returned to the world. It is the first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar. Therefore, later generations worship their ancestors on the first day of the tenth month and burn paper at their graves to show their memory of their ancestors. According to legend, this custom originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Qin Dynasty. One day, Duke Wen of Qin ordered people to cut down a catalpa tree, which suddenly turned into a cow. The cow jumped into the water and never came back. This bull god is worshiped. Nute is a tall, strong and majestic bull. In people's minds, such a bull has the function of warding off evil spirits and protecting cattle. The story of Lian saving his mother: “Those who have Mulian Monk have great magical power. His mother fell into the realm of hungry ghosts, and food turned into flames when she entered her mouth. She suffered from extreme hunger and suffering. Mulian was unable to save his mother from disaster, so he asked the Buddha for advice and taught him how to make the Ullambana Sutra on the 15th day of the seventh month to save his mother. "It is said that after going through a lot of hardships in the underworld, Mulian met his dead mother Liu and found that she was being tortured by a group of hungry ghosts. Mulian wanted to use a bowl with vegetables and rice for her to eat, but the vegetables and rice were eaten by the hungry ghosts. The ghost took it away. Mulian had to ask Buddha for help. Buddha was moved by Mulian's filial piety and granted him the Ullambana Sutra. According to the instructions, Mulian used the Ullambana to hold precious fruits and vegetables to worship his mother. The hungry mother finally got food. In order to commemorate Mulian's filial piety, Buddhists hold a grand "Ollambana Festival" every year, which is what we now call "Ghost Festival". The book says that on this day in ancient times, people held a grand festival. The Master's Seat and Shigu Platform are set up in front of Jiekou Village in advance. In front of the Master's Seat is the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva who has saved the ghosts from "hell", and below is a plate of peaches and rice. After noon, each household placed whole pigs, whole sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and various cakes, fruits, melons, etc. on the Shigu table. A handful of triangular paper flags in blue, red, green and other colors were placed on the offerings, with words such as "Bon Lan Festival" and "Ganlu Gate Opening" written on them. The ceremony began with a burst of solemn temple music. The master rang the bell, led the monks to recite various incantations and mantras, and then spread plates of peaches and rice in all directions. This ritual was called "flaming mouth" by the Qing Dynasty scholar Wang Kaitai. There is a poem that says: "The Taoist temple purifies the ghost souls, and the original Yulan ancient meaning remains. But it's strange that the red paper is posted on the door, and the meat mountain and the sea of ??wine celebrate the Chinese New Year. "Describes the custom of celebrating the Ghost Festival along the southeastern coast of my country. It can be seen that the "Ghost Festival" originated from the traditional virtue of filial piety. Today, people in northern my country still burn paper money on this day to pay homage to the deceased. Although the sacrifice method is simple, it basically preserves the simple meaning of the Ghost Festival, because the call of blood, the extension of feelings, and the reminder of one's future all give the Ghost Festival a rich meaning. The humanistic connotation. Even if the era is different and the gifts are burned, the living people will never be able to convey the endless sorrow and deep memory of their departed relatives. But "people of different ages have this special feeling." Festivals have different feelings, because the festivals of the future are coming to us mercilessly, from hazy to clear, from yearning to fear, from fear to calmness. When we miss the people in the past, we are actually thinking about our own lives today. experience, content, methods and pursuit of life. " There are countless words composed of "ghost" in Chinese, such as "ghost hero, ghost ghost, ghost talent" and so on. The folk legends about ghosts are even more inexhaustible. my country's ghost culture has a long history and has reached an almost perfect level. [Edited version Paragraph] Festival culture It is difficult to see the description of the afterlife in ancient mythology, and the word "ghost" did not originally have its current meaning.

The word "ghost" in the oracle bone inscriptions is originally a knowing word, with the word "human" below and a terrifying head above, meaning a human-like monster. Later, it gradually evolved into what a person changes into after death. "Book of Rites 6.1 Sacrifice for Righteousness" has made it very clear: "All living things must die, and after death they must return to the earth. This is called a ghost." "Book of Rites 6.1 Sacrifice" further points out: "Common people and common people If there is no temple, death is called a ghost. "That is, if dignitaries have temples to worship them after death and have people offering sacrifices all year round, they become gods. Ordinary people who have no temples to enjoy sacrifices after death and wander around are ghosts. "Ghosts, people are classified as ghosts" explained in my country's first dictionary "Shuowen" is the current meaning. There are many words related to "ghosts" in pre-Qin classics. Confucius famously said, "Respect ghosts and gods and keep them at a distance." This shows that Confucianism believes in ghosts and gods, but it is just "respect". Later, although Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty came up with the theory that there were no ghosts, it still could not shake the Chinese people's superstitious belief in ghosts and gods. In Pu Songling's works of the Qing Dynasty, although there were ferocious ghosts, most of them were young and beautiful female ghosts who valued affection and understood etiquette. After reading "Liao Zhai", not only did ghosts not feel scary, but they felt very cute. The perfection and enrichment of my country's ghost culture benefits from Buddhism and Taoism. Taoism is our real estate, Buddhism was introduced from the West during the Han and Wei dynasties, and was integrated into Confucian culture and secular culture. The underworld world after death (also called the underworld in Buddhism), which is the world where ghosts live, is gradually constructed. The main Taoist building is Fengdu City, which is concretely demonstrated on Pingdu Mountain on the bank of the Yangtze River in eastern Sichuan. The beautiful Pingdu Mountain was originally one of the seventy-two blessed places of Taoism. Wang Fangping of the Western Han Dynasty and Yin Changsheng of the Eastern Han Dynasty both practiced here and later became immortals. The transformation of Fengdu from immortals to ghosts is related to the surnames of the two immortals. Wang and Yin read backwards, which means the King of Yin, and he became the "King of the Underworld". After interpretations of the past dynasties, plus "Journey to the West" and "The Biography of Zhong Kui" After the novels about gods and demons were exaggerated, Fengdu was built into a ghastly ghost city, so there were the underworld grounds and government offices at all levels such as Naihe Bridge, Guimen Pass, Yin and Yang Realm, Emperor's Palace, Wuchang Palace, and City God's Temple. Compared with the Taoist underworld, the Buddhist underworld is much more complete and systematic. Buddhism has the so-called "Ten Realms", which means that there are ten realms in the world, namely Buddha, Bodhisattva, Pratyekabuddha, Sravaka, God, Human, Asura, Animal, Evil Ghost, and Hell. The first four are called the "Four Saints", that is, they have become saints and have escaped the suffering of reincarnation. The last six are called the "Six Mortals", who will reincarnate endlessly in the filthy land. The last three are also called the "Three Evil Paths" and the "Three Evil Paths". "Evil realm" is a more unfortunate state, and hell is the most unfortunate. Speaking of hell, it makes people shudder, and there are as many as eighteen levels. The lower you go, the more severe the suffering. In hell, there are not only evil spirits such as Yama, judges, and ghost soldiers, but also various tortures such as mountains of knives, oil pans, grinders, saws, and stone mills. Therefore, the most feared thing after death is entering the eighteenth level of hell. Most people in Guilin regard the 14th day of the lunar month as the Ghost Festival. The entire festival should start from July 7th to the night of July 14th. The process is to welcome the ancestors, see off the ancestors, and pay tribute to the ancestors; in some places, it starts from July 7th to the night of July 14th. Welcoming ancestors begins on the 7th of the lunar month, and some welcome the ancestors on the 13th of the lunar month, but there is also a "gong meal" (sacrifice) on the 7th of the lunar month; the ancestors are sent off on the night of the 14th of the lunar month, and the ancestors are sent off around 10 p.m. after the sacrifice before dinner. During the ceremony, the "purse" with the name of the ancestor written on it (the number of generations of ancestors varies from family to family), the "purse" of the bearer, the guide king, paper money and other objects are burned at the intersection, sprinkled with rice water and rice, and other rituals to bid farewell to the ancestors; The process is complex and solemn, and it is the festival with the most complicated local rituals. It is a festival that local people attach great importance to. In addition to the Spring Festival (the Lantern Festival is also a Spring Festival in local concepts, including the "Little Year"), it is the same as the Mid-Autumn Festival, Qingming Festival and Dragon Boat Festival. An equally important holiday. [Edit this paragraph] History of Ghost Festival Tomb sweeping during the Qingming Festival is related to funeral customs. According to records, in ancient my country, there were "tombs without tombs", which meant that only grave pits were dug but no tombs were built, so there was no way to carry out sacrifices and sweep them. Later, the tombs were added to the tombs, and the custom of offering sacrifices and sweeping came to have support. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, tomb worship had become an indispensable custom. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty? 6? 1 Records of Emperor Ming" quotes "Han Guan Yi" as saying: "In ancient times, there were no tomb sacrifices. Qin Shihuang slept on the side of the tomb, and the Han Dynasty did not change it. All the mausoleums are decorated with Hui, Wang, Twenty-four Qi, Sanfu, Food is served at the four seasons of She, La and La. "The emperor almost always offered sacrifices on festivals. Officials and ordinary people did not have so much time and money, so they gradually settled on the Qingming Festival in the 24 solar terms. At that time, the government allowed officials to ask for leave to worship and sweep, and among the people, "the roads in the fields were full of ladies and gentlemen, and humble servants and beggars all had to go to their parents' graves." By the Tang Dynasty, the sacrifice and sweeping ceremony had combined Hanshi and Qingming into one It's spring, and flowers are blooming. You can carry wine and go to the graves in a lively manner. Qingming is not only a ghost festival for sacrifices, but also a day for outings and fun.

From a secular point of view, the settings of these two ghost festivals are just right. Qingming Festival is when the snow in the north melts and the ice disappears. After the rains of autumn and summer and the ice and snow cover of winter, some of the loess on the tombs has been washed away, making them shorter and smaller. I use the Qingming Festival to sweep them away and add some soil. Let the ancestors' houses not leak from the wind and rain; and on July 15th, the beginning of autumn has passed, the weather is getting cooler, it is time to add clothes, it is also time to send some money to the ancestors underground to buy some clothes, no As for being cold and freezing in winter. The Chinese nation is a nation of rituals and has always paid attention to paying homage to its ancestors. I remember that when my family used to worship ancestors during the Spring Festival, the horizontal inscriptions on it were "Woody Water Source" and "Shen Zong Zhui Yuan", which meant not forgetting our ancestors. During the Cultural Revolution, when the Four Olds were destroyed and superstition was fought, who would dare to go to graves and burn paper? There is no burning paper to buy in the market, but many people still buy the white paper used by primary school students to order notebooks and secretly burn it on the graves of their relatives. In recent years, with the development of the economy, sacrificial supplies have become a major category for merchants to make money. Every Qingming Festival and July 15th, the streets are full of burning paper, and they are pushed into hills in front of the stores. There are many types and huge quantities. There are as many as stacks of fruit boxes during the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. And it is very similar to modern commodities. The burnt paper is in piles and bundles, neat and beautiful, and evenly printed with the imprints of ancient coins. There are also colorful U.S. dollars and Hong Kong dollars, with large denominations. One piece is worth hundreds of millions, plus the sizes are different. The golden gold ingot, if there really is a bank in Hades, it would be ashamed of its lack of financial resources and would be willing to close down. Can burning so much "money" really enable departed relatives to live a prosperous life in the underworld? There is no way to know. There is a saying that "the heart is sincere and the spirit is spiritual." I remember when I was a child, the old man said that it was not easy to use ready-made burnt paper, no matter how high the face value was. The best thing to use was to use a chisel carved from wood to look like a copper coin and hit the paper with a small hammer. There are many things to pay attention to when punching paper. It is best to be a descendant of the ancestor, it must be a boy, the hammer must be made of wood, and the marks made by punching cannot be overlapped. When I was a child, I often did this during the Chinese New Year or two ghost festivals. The old man told me that just putting a seal would be enough, but he was afraid that it would be difficult to use in the underworld because he didn't know it clearly, so he always hit it hard. He was also afraid that the money was short and the ancestors would not have enough, so he always hit it tightly. Although there is more paper now and it looks more beautiful, I feel that the paper money made by descendants when I was a child can better reflect the true feelings for the ancestors. Of course, on the day of the Ghost Festival, from the mountains to the streets, fires are shining everywhere, smoke is lingering, and paper ashes are flying, causing environmental pollution, sometimes causing fires and causing unnecessary losses. What can be done? It is a custom passed down from our ancestors, but the Chinese have not yet learned the habit of using flowers to express their grief and remembrance of their deceased relatives like Westerners do. Ghost Festival sacrifices cannot simply be regarded as superstition. In Western Christian countries, modern science has sent people to the moon and launched rockets to Mars, but they still have unwavering faith in God. In fact, it is a kind of spiritual sustenance. It may seem vulgar when we burn a few pieces of paper for our deceased relatives, but it actually contains rich moral and ethical connotations. This is a kind of gratitude and memory for departed relatives, a dialogue with people from another world, a kind of communication with ancestors, and a continuation of human race and spirit. Even if your loved ones were unfilial or poorly taken care of when they were alive, you can still achieve a psychological balance by saying a few words when visiting the grave and burning paper. Perhaps with the development of the times and the improvement of people's cultural level, our nation will find better ways to commemorate our ancestors, but commemorating and remembering our ancestors is indispensable in all times. According to legend, July 15th of the lunar calendar is the day when the gates of ghosts are wide open. On that day, they can stay in the human world for a day. Even some lonely ghosts can accept offerings from people in the human world on that day, so that day is also called Ghost Festival. [edit] This paragraph] Related poems Xin has been on July 15th. Cars are driving slowly beside the willow trees, and there is a whirlwind on the road around the pond; On this day, all the ghosts are smiling, and every household is busy visiting the graves. Author: Liu Xiaofeng (Liu Zhou) Note: "July 15th" is the Ghost Festival of the lunar calendar, and it is also the Buddhist Bon Festival. It is a tomb-sweeping festival that is as important as the Qingming Festival in Chinese tradition. "Whirlwind": According to myths and legends, after a dead person turns into a ghost, he can only come out and move when he turns into a whirlwind. Wang Mingsheng's analysis: The first two sentences, "The car drove slowly by the willow trees, and there was a whirlwind on the road around the pond" calmly describe what the author saw on the way to the tomb, and also reflected the author's very quiet and solemn mood when he went to the tomb. The three sentences "On this day all the ghosts are smiling" are the author's reverie derived from "There is a whirlwind on the road around the pond". The last sentence, "Every family is busy visiting the graves" points out the reason why "all the ghosts are smiling" and casts a layer of lively joy on the originally sad tomb-sweeping festival.

The whole poem is exquisite in conception and humorous in writing. It is an excellent work expressing traditional Chinese folk customs. (Originally published in "Heaven Has Neon Clothes") The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is also called the "Ghost Festival". Although there are many opinions about this festival, such as the Taoist Ghost Festival, the Buddhist Obon Festival, etc., but my The description of my hometown (Zijin County, Heyuan) is something I have never seen online. Legend has it that during the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang conquered the Southern Barbarians and captured Meng Huo seven times. He killed too many people and the ship could not cross the river when he moved his troops back to the court. He offered sacrifices to the river on the night of the 15th day of the seventh lunar month and successfully crossed the river the next day. In order to commemorate the soldiers, Meng Huo designated today as the "Ghost Festival" and offers sacrifices every year. At that time, everything south of the Qinling Mountains belonged to the Southern Barbarians, and Guangdong was the land of the Barbarians. In my hometown, July 15th is a big festival. Generally, we don’t celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. July 15th is only slightly worse than the Chinese New Year. It is also called “a festival of the year”. We usually sacrifice ancestors and have a big meal. But now these festivals are gradually disappearing.