I’ve been very vocal about my dislike for Halloween and how much I appreciate how Filipinos celebrate All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day.
I was intrigued when one of my writers, Princess, told me about Ghost Month, which starts between August and September in the Philippines.
I’m going to let Princess explain:
“Ghost Month” is part of Chinese culture, and it’s adopted by the Filipino-Chinese and other mixed-Chinese peoples in Asia. Ghost Month is believed to be the most inauspicious time of the year for making huge decisions, because the Chinese believe that around this time, the gates of the underworld are open, and spirits – both benign and malicious – roam the mortal world.
Traditionalists say that Ghost Month only affects major life decisions, such as engagements and weddings, embarking on new business ventures, moving residences, etc. But sometimes generations add their own stipulations to the belief.
For example, all of us cousins were never allowed to go out of the house for parties, excursions, or any extracurricular activities during August and September. My mother and my aunts and uncles all believed going outdoors during the Ghost Month will invite accidents, sickness, and bad luck for the rest of the year.
Ghost Month this year falls around the last week of August until the last week of September. But in our family, the whole of August and September is believed to be unlucky. Better start the superstition early – or so my elders say.
Personally, I don’t believe in it too much. Many of my happiest memories happened around Ghost Month. I got married in August, and my son was born in late August, too. I think it’s just a coincidence that we all got sick at the same time.
But Filipinos are also a superstitious lot, so it wouldn’t be difficult to add a few more Dos and Don’ts to their beliefs.
I think the idea of Ghost Month really took off when people started practicing Feng Shui, another Chinese tradition that uses geomancy (or the harmony between persons and their environment). Hiring Feng Shui experts to determine if your house or business is lucky based on the positions of doors, windows, and furniture was all the rage in the late 90s, so I suspect that’s how non-Chinese Filipinos learned of Ghost Month.
But when I was growing up, not a lot of people knew about it. My high school friends thought it was weird that I wasn’t allowed to stay long after school to do projects or just hang out.”
It’s superstition, I get it.
But then Julia pointed out there’s something to this.
August to September is the peak typhoon season in the Philippines. More people get sick. There are more accidents and disasters. They would want to avoid scheduling important events around this time to avoid it, like the one that just happened last week.
I want to clarify that all that flooding isn’t due to a typhoon. It’s just a really strong storm that dumped a week’s worth of rainfall in an hour.
This phenomenon occurs almost every year in the Philippines, making it easy to understand why they believe in Ghost Month and why they associate it with a lot of bad luck.
By the way, if you have virtual assistants in Quezon City (it’s one of the cities in Metro Manila), you might want to check in on them. It’s a densely populated city, and many Filipino virtual assistants live there. Based on reports, it seems the flooding is limited to that city and hasn’t affected the rest of the country.
John