Chan Selina Ching

Kwansei Gakuin University Repository

???????????????Selina Ching CHAN?Hong Kong Shue Yan University?Beyond Justice : Religious Ritual after Massive ViolenceIntroductionThe Hungry Ghosts Festival originated historically from Buddhism in India. In China, it isknown as Yulanpen, and the story of how Mulian (the Chinese name for Buddha’s disciple Maudga­lyâyâna) saved his mother from punishment in hell through ritual chanting is widely known today.The festival has been practised since 538 AD with Buddhist rituals established by Emperor Liang­wudi in commemoration of ancestors (Huang, 2011, p.181). From the Song dynasty (960­1279 AD)onwards, Daoist rituals have also been incorporated into practices at the Hungry Ghosts Festival bythe commoners. The meaning of the festival has been expanded from venerating ancestors to com­memorating those who lost their innocent lives to misfortune. In Hong Kong, there were at least 118celebrations of the Hungry Ghosts Festival held at various public places by different ethnic commu­nities in the seventh lunar month in 2014. The festival aims to send off wandering spirits who haddied of misfortune. This paper argues that the festival reveals the collective memories of disasters,and also how these memories are very different from the official grand narratives (Chan 2015). Suchlocal memories fill the missing gap in the existing official Hong Kong history which emphasized thecapitalistic boom and economic achievements with an apolitical perspective.Memories Embedded in the Organizations of the Hungry Ghosts FestivalHong Kong’s Victoria Harbour’s deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on the SouthChina Sea has attracted many cargo ships, creating the internationally well­known Hong Kong entre­pot. As early as the late 19th century, there were many Chaozhou migrants who worked as coolies inpiers. Accidents often occurred when coolies moved heavy weights from ships to land and somedied. Subsequently, the coolies decided to begin organizing the Hungry Ghosts Festival activities topacify those who died from such accidents. Organized activities at the Hungry Ghosts Festival weremeant to send off the wandering spirits who died accidentally during work or during the process ofmigrating to Hong Kong. These tragic memories are significantly different from the conventionalHong Kong narratives which primarily focus on the laissez­faire system and the successful narrative.Memories embedded in the organization of Hungry Ghosts Festival also reveals how the HongKong people cope with disasters involving deaths caused by accidents through public mourning, es­pecially after the war. In fact, sending off wandering spirits seemed to be an important task of theHungry Ghosts Festival right after the War. These memories are briefly mentioned by the grand nar­ratives of Hong Kong and the official texts. However, vivid memories of the brutal acts of the Japa­nese army were recalled by organizers of the Hungry Ghosts activities who lived through the warand passed down to the younger generation. A senior organizer of the festival in western districtsaid that he was told to lock the rice shop owned by his father during the Japanese war and stayed????????????? 3? ??? ?indoors. He recalled seeing how the Japanese tortured the people in Hong Kong. He said, “everyonehas to bow to those Japanese soldiers in the Japanese way. Anyone who did not bow properlywould be stabbed in the stomach and pushed into the sea . . . Even for those women who are preg­nant, the Japanese would still treat them the same way, stabbing and dumping both mother and childinto the sea”.Another informant from the western part of Hong Kong has similar memories of the war. Hesaid, “I arrived at Hong Kong in 1938 when I was 18 . . . Why did we begin organizing the HungryGhosts Festival? It is because a friend who was killed by the Japanese during the war visited me inmy dreams . . . Later, relatives who died in Chaozhou during the war also came into my dreams andcomplained of a lack of proper places to stay and proper clothes to wear. So we decided to performrituals to pacify these spirits.” Similarly, Mr. Yao, who was interviewed by a researcher at the Cen­ter of Asian Studies in HKU also recalled, “We started praying at the Hungry Ghosts Festival from1943, which was during the Japanese occupation period. Those who worked in ‘Junyi’ Warehousewere predominantly Chaozhou people. They started the praying at the Hungry Ghosts Festival thatwas held along the pier. They prayed for those who were killed by the Japanese. Some were killedafter being accused by the Japanese for stealing things at the warehouse.”(Accession no. : 131,HKU)While the older informants were able to recall memories of Japanese violence or memories offriends who lost their lives during the Japanese war, most young informants merely heard from oralmemories passed down from the older generation. Besides, many other memories of the Japanesewar are related to the sudden discovery of massive burial sites at various locations in Hong Kong.Conclusion : From Healing to Chinese National Intangible Cultural HeritageTo conclude, remembering the grand activities of the Hungry Ghosts festival at different dis­tricts of Hong Kong is to uncover the social memories of Hong Kong. Oral narratives recounting theorigins of the grand Hungry Ghosts religious performance reveal disaster memories. Although theHungry Ghosts Festival began in the migrant society of Hong Kong as a religious festival for heal­ing and coping with disaster, it has obtained new meanings as Hong Kong society has become moreand more modernized and secularized. The Hungry Ghosts Festival is not only a religious festival,but it has recently also become a representation of Hong Kong culture which has attracted publicgaze, especially since decolonization. This is partly due to the pervasiveness of Hong Kong nostal­gia among its people at that time. As a refuge for the Hong Kong people in the context of decoloni­zation, nostalgia has also become a wider public concern over local history, cultures, and traditions.Both intellectuals and ordinary Hong Kong people tend to actively remember and create memoriesrelated to local cultures. Such an awareness of history and tradition is indeed a common decoloniza­tion experience. The Chaozhou Hungry Ghosts Festival officially became Hong Kong’s IC in 2009and China’s national level ICH in 2011.ReferencesChan, S. C., Chaoji Yulanshenghui : Feiwuzhiwenhuayichan, Jitijiyi Yu Shengfengren tong ?Chaozhou Hungry Ghosts Fes-tival : Intangible Cultural Heritage, Collective Memories, and Identities?(Hong Kong : Chung Hwa Publishing Co.,2015).Poon, S. W., ‘Refashioning Festivals in Republican Guangzhou’, Modern China, 30(2) (2004), 199­227.??????????? Vol.6 No.1? ??? ?

紛争、正義、記憶と癒し (国際学研究フォーラム講演録3: 2016年6月9日 (木)・10日 (金))

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紛争、正義、記憶と癒し (国際学研究フォーラム講演録3: 2016年6月9日 (木)・10日 (金))

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