Of Hungry Ghosts and Odysseus in the Underworld

This is the month of the hungry ghosts.

The gates of the other worlds, heaven and hell, swing open. Those who have departed this world return to their former abodes. Out of longing for this world, to see how those they left behind are faring, it is a coming back to the place that was once their home.

The Hungry Ghosts are those who have no living family to care for them, or who died unjustly, violently, or with unfinished business. They are released because they have been suffering in the underworld and need a chance to receive the merits of a full life: the food, the wealth, and the emotions not resolved. It is an attempt to complete a life that was not fully lived.

And those who are still here welcome them. On the streets of Kuala Lumpur or any of the suburbs, joss sticks burn all night. Beside their glow, you see offerings of food specially prepared for the visitors. No one disturbs the offerings, not even the hungriest dogs. It's a month of collective apology and pacification, a way to resolve old grudges from the spirit world so the living may have peace.

There is a whole protocol of taboos to bring order to this homecoming. The living alter their steps to accommodate the unseen. We do not step over the ash on the pavement, nor do we kick the small piles of fruit, for that would be akin to stepping on a guest’s plate.

During this period, there are special getai operas to entertain the spirits. Performed on covered stages built on streets closed for the occasion, they continue into the small hours of the morning. The entire front row of plastic chairs is left completely empty. No living person will sit there, saving the best view for the souls who have travelled so far.

We are warned not to stay out too late, not to whistle into the midnight air, and to stay away from dark waters, lest we accidentally tether ourselves to a passing shade. These are not merely superstitions born of fear; they are acts of deep courtesy; the rules of hospitality extended to those who no longer have a home.

We often walk past these roadside displays barely looking, not realising they are the physical manifestations of one of the most agonisingly human needs: to say the words left unsaid, to fulfil the obligations left uncompleted, and to find the closures never achieved in life.

This is not a need unique to the here and now of this region. It is a universal ache that echoes across time and geography.

In another world, in another time, in Homer’s Odyssey, the war-weary Odysseus descends into the underworld to find the spirit of Tiresias, the prophet, to guide him home. He digs a trench in the dark earth and pours out libations—milk, honey, sweet wine, and the dark blood of a sacrifice. The ghosts of the underworld have no voice until they are fed. They are shadows, drifting in hunger, waiting for the living to reach across the divide and give them the sustenance required to speak. By chance, Odysseus sees the ghost of his mother, Anticleia. He tries to throw his arms around her. Three times he reaches out, and three times she slips through his fingers like smoke from a candle.

That ancient, heartbreaking ache in the Greek underworld is precisely what is burning on the pavements of Kuala Lumpur during this month.

The "Hungry Ghosts" we feed are not monsters to be feared. In the local tongue, they are referred to as the Hao Xiong Di—the "Good Brothers." They are the forgotten souls, the ones who died without family, the ones whose names have faded from living memory. By laying out crackers, pouring thimbles of Chinese wine onto the tarmac, and burning paper replicas of cars, televisions, and other luxuries of our time, the living are acting just as Odysseus did. We are digging a trench in the concrete. We are giving the forgotten a momentary voice, a brief seat at the table, and a reassurance that they are still tethered to the kindness of those who are still living.

Whether it is an ancient Greek king, lost and pining for his mother on a desolate Mediterranean shore, a Londoner quietly wishing they could make one last phone call to a departed parent, or a Malaysian shopkeeper bowing before a plate of fruit on a humid night, the impulse is identical.

The veil between the living and the dead is terrifyingly thin, yet impossibly wide. We cannot march into the underworld to drag our loved ones back. And so, we do the next best thing. We leave a light on for them on the pavement. We stage operas. We burn a stick of incense to guide them home. We whisper into the smoke, hoping that whatever is drifting in the dark can hear us, can forgive us, and can finally find some peace.