Explainer | In Chinese mythology, how demons, spirits, ghosts and monsters are separated
As the Hungry Ghost Festival nears, we look at ‘yao jing gui guai’ in Chinese culture and their habit of appearing as beautiful women
According to ancient Chinese legend, the Hungry Ghost Festival – which falls on September 6 this year – is when the gate to the underworld opens, allowing ghosts of the deceased to pass through to the realm of the living.
But not all ancestors have good intentions, and it is not just human souls that take their once-a-year opportunity to visit the earthly dimension.
In Chinese mythology, there are many supernatural beings that inhabit other spiritual spheres. They are usually called yao guai in short – the two characters can respectively express “bewitching” and “strange” – but yao jing gui guai is the proper name for the entire category, which translates to “demons, spirits, ghosts and monsters”.
One of the earliest records of the word yao guai dates back to the Book of Han, a history of China initiated by Ban Biao (AD3-AD54), a notable Eastern Han court official and historian, and finished by his son, Ban Gu (AD32-AD92).
Although the book was mainly a historical account of the Han dynasty, it had brief mentions of ancient legends in relation to superstitions, natural phenomena and inexplicable events, the eeriness of which was described with the term yao guai.
The words yao, jing, gui and guai have always been somewhat interchangeable – perhaps for the purpose of better-sounding phonetics – but they do exist as four categories with clear and separate definitions. Find out more below.