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영어

The basic structure of Taiwan‘s Chung Yuan Festival lies in the belief that people would seek profits in this world by treating the forlorn wandering ghosts with no posterity in the seventh lunar month to avoid harms and bring good luck. Although the festival may be summarized in short, its inner contents are not so simple. Various ways of ritual and peculiar viewpoints of spirits are complexly intertwined. Based on these facts the following characteristics can be pointed out to the scholars who try to compare the folklore of East Asian countries. First, Keelung's Chung Yuan festival in Taiwan goes beyond a simple offering for hungry ghosts, reinforces community harmony and kinship ties, and achieve a social distribution of wealth through rituals. At last the festival can be established as a community festival. Second, the festival is sure to be a Taoist one. Although there is a more or less overlapping of Taoism and Buddhism, the festival, strictly speaking, belongs to Taoism. Accordingly the opinion that some scholars regard the festival as Buddhist Ullambana(盂蘭盆會) needs to be reconsidered. Third, the festival reflects the ritual for both ancestors and hungry ghosts. Because ancestral rites are performed in the morning and wandering ghosts in the afternoon, the festival should not be emphasized to be the feast for hungry ghosts. Fourth, it has been thought that ancestral ghosts do not leave their home even after death. Therefore people do not visit their ancestors' tombs to bring the ghosts to the ritual of Chung Yuan. This point in Taiwan is quite different from those of Korea and Japan. Moreover, Japan has many facilities for the dead including tombs, ancestral tablets, Butsudan, Bodaizi, graveyards only for visiting, and burial graves not for visiting. There remains a significant question on where a spirit lies. Likewise Taiwan's Chung Yuan festival must be an important ritual which makes us ask a fundamental question. If a comparative study of the ritual is performed thoroughly, the illumination of viewpoints on spirits in East Asia shall be expected.