Taiwan-Sanxia_PUDU_with_Jigong-93

Pudu ritual during Ghost Month in Taiwan Sanxia - near Taipei hosted by spirit medium Nana Chen

Pudu ritual hosted by Nana Chen alias Ji Gong Shi-Fu (the buddhist folk hero) who will possess her body later on to engage in worldly affairs. Let’s assume ghosts do exist, they must all have gathered here in Sanxia today, as Nana’s team has just outclassed the services of a major charity catering. To be frank, this feast could cater easily for a whole army of hungry spirits, including all their ghostly pets. There’s even a feeding section for animal spirits with some miniature paper spa imitations for not yet reincarnated dog and cat spirits. Toddler spirits can enjoy themselves too, asides from a wide array of sweets, porridge, juice, and cereals, they’ll receive all sorts of fun stuff like a ukulele and a passenger jet crafted with paper mâché. These, together with the piles of hell money for the adult spirits, will be cremated later on. Unlike the smaller ’messages’, such major burns have been relocated to proper incinerators. Ghost Month was recently nicknamed National Pollution Month, because of the amount of ash generated by people burning gifts to send to the dead. Especially the urban territories of the island are now enforcing new laws to meet all criteria of ‘eco-friendly ghost worshiping’. Commonly, all the food will be going either to the participants and the local orphanage, just after the ghosts have taken their share.