Going to start with an apology for the silly title, but the experience was a bit silly. I finally went to visit that cemetery turned city park across the street from me. It's been an unusually warm winter in the part of Upstate New York where I live. I also brought along my tablet, on which I installed an app called 'ghost radar'. It supposedly senses changes in the capacitors on the chips inside the device, determines if they're the result of ghosts or spirits trying to communicate, and displays results in the form of color coded blips of how strong the ghost is, some numbers, and sometimes words. Some reviews of it in the various app stores detail experiences using it to hunt for ghosts.
Before heading out, I tested it in my apartment and found the device quite app can detect the elevators in my apartment building. I turned it off and headed across the street. The park was empty of living people on my arrival, it being on a school day during normal school hours. At other times, the park would be too full of school children playing soccer, or drug dealers and homeless if late at night. I went about 1 in the afternoon, right after I'd eaten lunch.
Almost as soon as I brought up the ghost radar app, my tablet started spouting words. The same words, over and over. 'chicken wings'. Personally, I dislike chicken wings, as I find it to be too much work to get the little bit of meat off the tiny bones. So, either there was a hungry ghost who wanted me to get some wings, or there was a ghost just teasing me for my dislike of his or her favorite snack.
[note from the webmaster: this is an update by the author on 2017-04-13]
Hi. I have a sort of update to this story, and it is not a good one, but also not ghost related.
Someone went on a joy ride and vandalized the cemetery as well as some other city parks.
I'll be visiting the cemetery myself early next week to do as suggested by members of YGS, and also take a few pictures, but not of the damage.
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The Chinese lunar calendar will vary from year to year. The Ghost Month in 2016 was between August 3 - 31, while in 2017, it was August 22 - September 19. For next few years, the Ghost Months will probably be on these dates:
* August 11 - September 9, 2018
* August 1 - August 29, 2019
* August 19 - September 16, 2020.
As my mother's birthday falls in end-September, she would always caution us against travelling back to Singapore during this period. We try to keep Mum happy.
If you're interested in the general folklore, here are a few links:
Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival
Https://www.yourchineseastrology.com/holidays/ghost-festival/
Http://www.visitsingapore.com/en_au/festivals-events-singapore/cultural-festivals/hungry-ghost-festival/
Https://www.thoughtco.com/hungry-ghost-festival-687512
On two separate occasions when I was Singapore, I've had work colleagues (one non-Buddhist, the other an atheist) tell me of how they've kicked over a neighbour's shrine or a roadside food offering. Both suffered inexplicable trips and falls on flat surfaces soon after, and injured their ankles on the "offending" foot. Probably just a coincidence... I hope. 😟