The spirit realm is often seen as a place of suffering, home to those without proper burials or forgotten by their families. The festival gives the living a chance to honour these souls and remind them that they are not alone.

During the festival, Taoists and Buddhists observe customary practices of preparing food offerings and burning material items such as paper houses and hell notes in burners that dot roadsides, as well as putting on getai shows in residential neighbourhoods. Temples often go further by burning paper effigies of deities.

Qing Yi Dian temple volunteers praying to the Guardian God of Ghosts, also known as Da Shi Ye in Chinese mythology, after setting up a feast for wandering spirits outside the temple at Woodlands 11 on Sept 4, 2025. The temple, founded in 2021 by Mr Ee and his family, occupies a unit in the industrial building.

The Straits Times visited Qing Yi Dian temple in Woodlands to observe its celebrations for the Hungry Ghost Festival. At the heart of the temple’s observance of the festival was Mr Ivan Ee, 56, who manages the temple in Woodlands 11 with 20 to 30 volunteers, most of them relatives and friends.

Offerings for child spirits outside Qing Yi Dian temple at Woodlands 11 on Sept 4, 2025. The items included food, toys and clothing selected with children in mind, such as candy and miniature carousels. Most were purchased, while some were donated by volunteers.

For Mr Ee, the highlight of Qing Yi Dian temple’s celebrations is the getai show. For the past four years, he and his volunteers have made it their mission to bring both prayers and performances to Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery grounds.

Mr Ee’s son Yi Hong (centre, in black), 35, a spirit medium, surrounded by Qing Yi Dian temple volunteers as they made their way from the temple in Woodlands to Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery on a float on Sept 12, 2025. The float serves as a mobile getai stage for the performance at the cemetery.

He had to secure a permit from the National Environment Agency to ensure the event could proceed safely and within regulations.

Most of the preparations took place on Sept 12, the day of the show.

At the temple, volunteers moved quickly to load supplies and pack 600 food offerings for the spirits to take to the cemetery.

Qing Yi Dian temple volunteers performing a ritual and making offerings to wandering souls outside Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery on Sept 12, 2025.

When the team finally arrived at the cemetery, their work shifted from preparation to transformation.

Temple volunteers praying at the cemetery with food offerings for wandering spirits. The prayers were led by Taoist priest Mr Chen.
Volunteers from Qing Yi Dian temple placing joss sticks onto food offerings after prayers to invite wandering spirits to partake in the meal at Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery on Sept 12, 2025.

Candles were lit around the ritual site – a gesture of remembrance. In front of a mountain of incense, the offerings were carefully arranged under the guidance of the spirit medium, Mr Ee’s 35-year-old son Yi Hong (below, left).

He channelled the Black Impermanence, or Hei Wuchang in Mandarin, a deity in Chinese folk religion believed to escort souls to the underworld.

In a trance-like state, the medium acted as a vessel, allowing the deity to communicate instructions for preparing and conducting prayers for the wandering spirits.

“Not everyone is blessed from birth – and that includes not only the living, but also the lost souls and children who return in the seventh month. I believe our actions help us cultivate virtue,” he said.

By dusk, there was anticipation in the air as the living gathered to pray, and symbolically, so did the dead.

Mr Ivan Ee, the temple manager, singing during a getai performance at the cemetery meant to entertain both departed spirits and the living.
(From left) Mr Ivan Ee singing with his brothers Raymond, 48, and Desmond, 46, and getai singer Teong Swee Kiong after the temple’s prayer session at Lim Chu Kang Chinese Cemetery on Sept 12, 2025.

Under a wash of colourful lights, getai performers took the stage, belting out Mandarin ballads and Hokkien classics that carried through the darkness.

Seated before the stage, Mr Ee Yi Hong (below, centre), the spirit medium, drank liquor and smoked as he watched the performance, pausing at times to whisper song requests to temple assistants.

Temple devotees stepped up one after another, singing and dancing late into the night.

For many younger Singaporeans, the Hungry Ghost Festival is mostly about roadside offerings, void deck rituals and getai shows. Few have seen it in the quiet expanse of the cemetery, where the focus is less on public spectacle and more about responsibility: feeding and caring for unseen souls, and reminding the living to show compassion beyond themselves.

A father and son lighting candles at the void deck of Block 440A Clementi Avenue 3, as they prepared for Seventh Month prayers on Sept 5, 2025. Such scenes are familiar to many Chinese Singaporeans, where candles and joss sticks are lit for prayers, tea leaves offered to spirits and hell notes burned as provisions for the afterlife.

This is why younger volunteers – like 30-year-old Lin Shifeng, an assistant to the spirit medium – have been helping at the temple since its founding in 2021.

“To me, the Hungry Ghost Festival is a reminder to respect and care for the unseen spirits around us, while also showing gratitude to our ancestors. Participating in the offerings and rituals is a way to honour and keep their memory alive, and that keeps me going,” said Mr Lin.

It was the devotion of volunteers like him – preparing food, hauling equipment, and arranging incense offerings – that kept the festival alive and meaningful.

Midway through the performance, the music faded as the crowd gathered near the offerings. Paper houses and cars and stacks of joss paper currency were placed in a metal burner and consumed by flames.

Wisps of ash rose skyward, carrying the offerings to the waiting spirits, while the flames cast a glow over the gravestones.

For a few hours, the dead were honoured, and the living came together in remembrance.

The younger Mr Ee channelling the Black Impermanence, sealing the urns used for prayers to wandering spirits with the help of his assistant Mr Lin, at Qing Yi Dian temple on Sept 20, 2025, the second-last night of the seventh month. The ritual symbolically marks the closing of the Gates of Hell. The urns will be stored away and brought out again only during next year’s Seventh Month prayers.

“What matters most is knowing your purpose – to build virtue and leave the cemetery in peace. There’s no need for recognition or reward; if your deeds are meaningful, both people and spirits will see them,” said the younger Mr Ee.