The World's Spookiest Celebrations

Mexico’s annual ìDia De Los Muertos" celebrations date back thousands of years to their Aztec ancestors. Held in November, the three-day celebration honours dead relatives who are believed to return home for the celebrations. Altars are decorated with flowers and photographs, while food and drink are left out for the ghosts to feed upon. Meanwhile a basin and towel are provided for the spirits to wash before indulging in their feast. Candles and incense are burned to guide the spirits home while families spend time at gravesides eating, drinking and sharing memories. It is customary for a live person to be placed inside a coffin and paraded through the streets while onlookers throw fruit, flowers and candles into the casket. The Day of The Dead sugar skull and candy skull have become a popular souvenir with tourists when visiting Mexico.

Bon, or Obon, is a Japanese Buddhist custom in honour of the dead. Held over three days, families across Japan clean ancestral graves and prepare for their dead relatives’ return. Many Obon celebrations include a huge carnival with rides, games, and summer festivities. The festival is over 500 years old and even has its own traditional festival dance called Bon-Odori. Also known as The Festival of Lanterns, at the end of each festival paper lanterns are illuminated and floated down rivers symbolising the ancestral spirits' return to the world of the dead. The ceremony usually ends with a fireworks display.

A festival of both remembrance and exorcism, the Chinese celebrate ìTeng Chiehî (Ghost Festival) in July. Bonfires and lanterns light the paths of the spirits, while food and water are placed in front of the photographs of deceased family members. Buddhist worshippers set alight hundreds of paper boats to usher the spirits of those who have drowned or never had their bodies buried, so they can finally move onto the afterlife. These spirits, known as Pretas, are thought to be malevolent creatures, dangerous to humans if allowed to remain on earth in their unsettled state.

 

Ireland is the birthplace of Halloween, where many of the traditions enjoyed today in western culture began. The Irish are thought to have invented bobbing for apples, trick-or-treating, bonfires and other activities to entertain young members of the family. Irish Immigrants then carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Today, common Halloween activities all over the world include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, dressing up as ghosts, monsters or other scary characters, throwing Halloween parties, visiting "haunted houses", carving pumpkins into Jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies.

 

In Hong Kong, the Hungry Ghost Festival, known as Yue Lan, is a major Buddhist and Taoist event. Yue Lan marks a 24-hour period during which spirits return to roam the earth. Hungry ghosts are restless spirits of the deceased who never had a funeral. With no one visiting their graves, they do not receive the gifts that Chinese people usually take to their deceased relatives, and therefore miss out on food and spirit money.  To prevent the ghosts from causing any problems for the living, people provide them with food to appease them. People later eat the offerings themselves, and pray for good luck.