Welcome, visitor, to the Festival of Masks! It is a time of solemn ceremony, to make sure that our ancestors and the ancestors of all our people rest easy in death, in whichever realm they may inhabit.
You are welcome to join our observances, but please note that despite the fact that all are masked and that there is entertainment available, it is still a solemn occasion.
Guidebooks and pamphlets explaining the Festival of Masks and its history are available at the Port Information Desk.
Just remember that if you wish to join in watching an entertainment, that you do not sit in the front row. Despite the fact it may appear empty, that row is reserved for the spirits of the ancestors who join us during this occasion.— Xingkou Port Welcome Message during the Festival of Masks
The Festival of Masks is an adaptation of the traditional
Chinese Ghost Festival, when hungry ghosts - those without descendants (in the male line, sometimes) to care for their graves and provide them with food, incense, and
Joss Paper - wander the world, seeking food, entertainment, and tribute. The Festival of Masks does not involve ancestor worship the way some other festivals do; instead, it is supposed to be a time when all hungry ghosts are released to visit the living world.
Observance
As time has gone on, and other planets have been colonized, the Ghost Festival changed (on
Xianjie) to
The Festival of Masks. The general idea of the festival - feeding and providing entertainment to hungry ghosts, in order to help them and to avoid misfortune - has remained much the same, but the ways in which it is observed have changed.
The Festival that takes place in
Xingkou, the spaceport of
Xianjie, is open to the public.
Masks
The eponymous detail of the festival, the masks are designed to disguise everyone, so the hungry ghosts will feel welcome to wander among the celebrants, without being recognized as ghosts. Masks can be simple or elaborate, and can depict creatures, concepts, or people. Sometimes the person will also dress up to match the mask.
IMPORTANT: This is not just a variation on Halloween. While the original festivals of each draw from some of the same concepts (the harvest, the world of the dead gaining access to the world of the living during harvest-time, feeding the spirits in question), the cultures they come from are different. The Festival of Masks is not a time for merry-making, except for performances meant for the entertainment of the hungry ghosts. It is instead a serious festival, meant to help avert misfortune and aid those of the deceased who have no descendants to treat them well.
Entertainment
And in reference to the forms of entertainment available during the Festival of Masks, there are performances that include dances, plays (particularly classics), poetry readings, and other forms of performance that can take place on stages. (Does
not include things such as circuses or stand-up performances.)
Always, the first row of seats is left empty, for the ghosts to sit to watch the entertainment. It is the height of gaucheness to attempt to sit in that first row.
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