If you do this one thing correctly, you can eat the offerings to the wandering souls. If you do it wrong, you will get into trouble.

While many people consider eating offerings to wandering souls to be taboo, some localities have the custom of snatching offerings to wandering souls, so should we eat offerings to wandering souls?

The question of whether or not to eat offerings to wandering souls is asked by many people on the full moon day of the 7th lunar month. On this day, in addition to the offerings to ancestors, gods, and Buddha (for Buddhists), families also have a ceremony to worship sentient beings, also known as the offering to wandering souls. This ceremony is often performed outdoors, even on the street, for homeless souls who have no relatives to worship them.

Regarding the reason for offering to wandering souls outdoors, folklore holds that strange souls can be good or bad, and if invited into the house, they may encounter trouble if disturbed, so offering outside will ensure peace for the homeowner. Some people explain that each family's residential land is guarded by a local god, and "unauthorized" souls will not be allowed to enjoy the offering, or they will be afraid and not dare to enter.

Regarding offerings to wandering souls, many people believe that if they eat them, they will make the wandering souls, who are always hungry and thirsty, angry because they feel their food is being taken away, and will cause trouble, leading to bad luck, from mild to severe, stomachaches and discomfort, to other bad things.

However, in some localities in the South, there is a custom of snatching offerings to wandering souls, and there are even scenes of people fighting over them. People believe that if offerings to wandering souls are snatched by outsiders, the homeowner’s bad luck will disappear, and the person who snatches the offerings will also receive good luck.

So should we eat offerings to wandering souls? In terms of beliefs, as you can see, each place is different, depending on customs. In pagodas, offerings to wandering souls are still used as usual, because Buddhism does not attach to the form of objects. Offering food is offering a sincere heart, what the souls of all living beings receive is a heart of remembrance, sharing, and compassion, not a plate of sticky rice or a package of popcorn. Therefore, throwing away offerings to wandering souls without eating them is a form of food waste, which is not recommended.

However, in the past, people abstained from eating offerings to wandering souls for a reason. That is, offerings were often placed in the yard, in the alley, on the street, and placed very low. If left for a long time, they can easily become unhygienic, contaminated with dust, humidity, and invaded by flies, cockroaches, ants, and rats, so they contain many germs.

Surely there have been people who have had stomach aches after eating food offered to wandering souls, and because this happened during the ghost month - a period considered unlucky - the cause was attributed to "ghost teasing" or "ghost harassment". From there, the concept of abstaining from food offered to wandering souls, especially children, was carefully advised.

Nowadays, many offerings to wandering souls are packaged in sealed nylon, such as candy, popcorn, chips, or fruits with their skins intact, so they are completely hygienic. For other dishes, whether or not to eat offerings to wandering souls should be considered from a food safety perspective. If they are safe, they can be eaten. If they are unsafe, they should be discarded or reprocessed.

About the origin of the custom associated with the ceremony of worshiping sentient beings. Worshiping Buddha, ancestors and sentient beings are indispensable rituals in the 7th lunar month. In particular, worshiping sentient beings is for the souls who have no one to worship them.

Some places have the custom of snatching wandering souls on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. "Giất quả cô hồn" is a shortened way of saying "snatching offerings to wandering souls". This custom started from the Vu Lan Bon ritual (Vu Lan Festival) in Buddhism. At first, it was just the action of children quickly grabbing offerings and running away.

The custom of snatching wandering souls is popular in some regions of China, mainly in the Fujian region, called "snatching the ghosts". This is a part of the Vu Lan festival. Around the second half of the Qing Dynasty, due to the distortion of the ghost snatching festival, which caused many injuries, even fights, causing many social problems, the court banned the organization.

Some people believe that fighting over offerings to wandering souls is normal and that eating those offerings will bring peace and luck. Some even believe that when making offerings to wandering souls on the street, if someone steals the offerings before or during the offering, the homeowner should ignore them.

However, over time, the custom of snatching wandering souls has become more and more varied, no longer just for children but also for many adults. Many people even jostle each other to snatch the offerings and money from the homeowner even when they have not completed the offering ceremony, leading to disorder and affecting traffic safety.

Dr. Tran Huu Son - Director of the Institute of Applied Folk Culture Research - explained that when people die, some people return to the world of their ancestors and are then worshiped by their descendants. However, there are also people who die in accidents, die unexpectedly, die on the street or in the market, and are not cared for by their descendants, so they are left alone.

"The ancient Vietnamese believed that the seventh lunar month was the month when heaven and earth, yin and yang could meet, so they had to hold a ceremony to worship the souls who had no place to go," said Dr. Tran Huu Son.

The seventh lunar month is also the occasion for descendants to go to the pagoda to pray for their deceased ancestors. This custom guides people to open their hearts, care, and share with those in unfortunate and difficult situations in life.