In Phitsanulok graveyard, lights flicker as dead join the living for movie night
Phitsanulok province is resurrecting its spooky tradition of screening movies for the ghosts of ancestors during the Ching Ming Festival.
Ching Ming, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, falls on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox – or Wednesday (April 5) this year.
Families with Chinese heritage mark the festival by visiting the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make ritual offerings to appease their spirits.
This year, the Phitsanulok Chinese Association’s traditional Ching Ming activity flickered to life at the Chinese cemetery in Muang district on Monday. Festival-goers are being treated to open-air screenings of two movies per night at the graveyard, culminating in the finale tonight.
The films selected are all Chinese-speaking action and comedy films designed to please the spirits of ancestors, who were Chinese descendants living in Thailand. However, only a few of the living have joined the audience to watch the movies. The idea of being in the graveyard at night is apparently too spooky for some.
Pratheep Wasanadilok, a Phitsanulok local, said she has been going to the screening every night since Monday to pay respect to the spirits of her parents in tombs nearby. She also brought ice cream, their favorite dessert, as an offering and shared the rest with fellow moviegoers.
She said locals believed that the spirits of their ancestors will be watching the movies – which is why the area directly in front of the screen has been intentionally left empty.
