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A Story Told on Ghost Day

The Chinese Ghost Festival, also known as the Yulan Festival (Yulanpenhui), falls on the 15th day of the seventh month of a lunar year. The festival started with the popular Buddhist story about Mu Lin and his mother. Mu Lin’s mother had committed many sins before she was sent to hell and became a hungry ghost. Mu Lin learned about her suffering and went to help. He tried to feed her with rice and water. The food quickly caught fire before it could reach her lips. Mu Lin asked Buddha for advice and was told to perform rituals and to prepare food for other ghosts as well.

During the Chinese Ghost Festival, people used to prepare food to serve ghosts and lit red candles to memorialize the dead. Meng Hui’s new novel, A Story Told on Ghost Day, is about a Ghost Festival during the Tang Dynasty. In the story, a Tang prince tries to solve the myth of his mother's tragic death. He encounters conspiracy, treachery, love, friendship, sacrifice, and desire in the process of finding the truth. He gives a grand ritual on Ghost Festival only to witnesses an evil scene full of greedy people, like those hungry ghosts in hell.

The prince had a special hobby of making gold thread. According to the book, many Persian workers had been summoned to work in China at that time. They helped create exquisite patterns in textiles using shiny gold thread. The book provides in-depth insights into the weaving techniques of the Tang Dynasty, augmented by beautiful pictures of precious textiles found in Tang pagodas or tombs.

Another impressive scene in the book takes place at the palace court, where a respected monk teaches Buddhism to the queen. According to the author, this scene comes from a real historical record. Pointing to a lion made of gold under the queen’s curtain, the monk explains the relationship between life and its appearance. It is exactly like the difference between gold and a lion made of gold. To the author, the lion stands for the ultimate wisdom of history. “Sometimes wisdom has a very splendid shining appearance like the gold lion,” she wrote in the prologue. For Meng Hui, the lion stands for the brave and open spirit of the Tang Dynasty.