APPEASING THE WANDERING SPIRITS:

Chinese communities around the world are celebrating the annual Hungry Ghost Festival, which is observed in the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The reference to ghosts is due to the belief that the gates of the underworld are thrown open during the seventh month - which this year runs from August 10 until September 7. Offerings of food are left for the wandering ghosts and elaborate paper statues are burnt to appease the spirits. Paper lanterns are also sometimes set adrift to help guide lost souls. Many see the Hungry Ghost Festival as an inauspicious time to engage in certain activities, including moving house and getting married, however this report from channelnewsasia.com reveals an increasing number of people are happy to ignore the taboo and tie the knot regardless.

Chinese Cycles of Years.

Among the many extraordinary eu9» toms of the Chinese is that of banding yeare together in groups of twelve, called cycles and naming each year of the series after some animal. Thus, the first year of a new cycle is the year of the Rat, the second the year of the, Ox, the third the year of the Tiger. Every Chinese horn in the year of the Rat belongs to the Order of the Rat, and so on. The animal "class" of every Chinese man and woman is thus recorded, and is held to be of great importance in foretelling the future. Another curious fact about the Chinese reckoning of time is that in the Celestial Empire a child is held to be one year old, as soon as it is born. With the absurd superstition so dear to the Oriental mind, a baby boy is frequently given a girl's name in order to deceive the evil spirits, who, apparently, have an objectionable habit of making it as hard as possible to rear a male child success fully.

Name Children

The Chinese care so little for their girl babies that they do not give them a baby name, but just call them Number One, Number Two, Number Three, according to their birth. Boys sre thought so much more of in China than girls that if you ask a Chinese father who has both a boy and a girl how many children he has, he will always reply, Only one child. Bruce Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 2359, 25 March 1892, Page 6

MURDER ALLEGED MOTHER AND BABY GIRL

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) TAUMARUNUI, December 2, A Chinese half-caste woman, Olive Cronin, aged 27 years, wife of D. K. You, a lorry-driver, of Taumarunui, was arrested by the police this afternoon on a charge of killing her daughter aged 2 1/2 months by cutting her throat with a Cleaver. Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1935, Page 18

A FOUNDLING BABY Hearing a baby crying at the doorway of the St Banabas Home for Lost Babies in Khaiidallah at 6 o'clock yesterday morning a nurse was surprised to find a baby of distinctly Chinese appearance.The baby waß a boy,three weeks old,and healthy, It was nicely dressed in a cotton frock, two silk and wool/vests, and woollen booties, and wrapped in a woman's blaek face-cloth overcoat with fur collar and cuffs, Inquiries are being made to discover the parentsof the child, and any information that might throw light on tho matter should be given to the Police Department. Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 35, 11 February 1932, Page 13

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