Dress in your best ghostly attire and head down to Chinatown this Saturday for the Hungry Ghost Festival. Organized by the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, this second annual festival marks the time in the year when unhappy ghosts return to the living for solace. It’s also called the Yulan Festival and falls on the 15th night of the seventh lunar month (which is actually August 18 this year, but the festival is on the 17th).
Festivities kick off at 4pm at the Chinatown–Rose Pak Station (named for the local activist who helped secure support and funding for the Muni stop) on Stockton at Washington. There, the opening Ghost King Parade starts, taking a meandering path through the streets to wind up at Portsmouth Square. Then, until 9pm there will be a robust amount of things to do.
On Waverly Place, you’ll find a marketplace with food and gifts, while a block over on Grant Avenue attendees can visit art pop-ups. A kids’ zone is located back at the Rose Pak station. At Portsmouth Square, a stage hosts performances from nearly a dozen different groups, everything from the Yau Kung Moon Kung Fu & Lion Dance Group to Stanford Taiko and Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí. Also in the Square will be art activations, altars, community booths and the shopping challenge redemption, which rewards shoppers who purchase items at participating Chinatown shops from now until the festival.
That’s all the details about what’s happening, but the festival provides a deeper story than just activities. As the event website says, “We will embrace the theme, ‘Downpour, Uproar!,’ chasing the emotions and catharsis of rage and sorrow… Honoring our ancestors and wandering spirits into the night, we hope that the darker it gets, the bolder or more empowered we feel.”
The rituals of this festival are meant to appease restless spirits, which in turn can help us, the living, acknowledge and push back against our own grievances and rage. It is an all-ages festival, although some elements may be scary.
Many taboos accompany this fraught time of year (for instance, don’t whistle, take the last train at night or shave your legs); check out our list of things to avoid doing at the Hungry Ghost Festival. And finally, while it seems like a great idea to photograph yourself and friends at the festival, that’s actually one of the dangerous activities! Maybe just take a mental picture.