The Eve of the Spirit Festival by Lan Samantha Chang
"The Eve of the Spirit Festival" by Lan Samantha Chang is a poignant ghost story that explores themes of grief, cultural identity, and family dynamics within a Chinese American context. The narrative follows two sisters, Claudia and Emily, who grapple with the death of their mother during childhood and the subsequent alienation from their father. After the father's death, Emily witnesses his ghost on the eve of Gujie, the Chinese spirit festival, a night when ancestral spirits are believed to return to visit their families.
The story intricately portrays the sisters' evolving relationship with their father, marked by resentment and cultural conflict, especially as Emily challenges traditional mourning practices. Their father's adherence to Chinese customs, such as burning paper money for the dead, contrasts sharply with Emily's modern American sensibilities. As they navigate their lives, from childhood to adulthood, the sisters' paths diverge: Emily moves to California for college, while Claudia remains in New York. The climax occurs as family ties are tested, and spiritual connections are revealed, providing a rich exploration of loss and remembrance tied to cultural heritage. This story invites readers to reflect on the intersections of personal and cultural narratives in the face of mortality.
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The Eve of the Spirit Festival by Lan Samantha Chang
First published: 1995
Type of plot: Ghost story
Time of work: The 1980's through the early 1990's
Locale: New York City
Principal Characters:
Claudia , the narratorEmily , her older sisterHer father ("Baba") , who dies and appears as a ghostHer mother , who died when her children were youngBrad Delmonte , head of the father's chemistry department
The Story
"The Eve of the Spirit Festival" is a tightly constructed ghost story about two young Chinese American women dealing with the death of their parents. When they are little, their mother dies, forever changing their relationship with their father as they grow up. Once they have become young adults, his death and reappearance as a ghost to the older sister brings the story to a striking close.
The story opens as the girls' mother, who has died from an unspecified illness, has been cremated as part of a Buddhist ceremony. Sitting on the living-room floor of their modest apartment, the narrator, six-year-old Claudia, is comforted by her eleven-year-old sister, Emily. The older daughter is furious at what she sees as her father's tardiness in turning to Western medical treatment and blames him for the death of their mother. As her father enters, Emily ridicules his Chinese customs of mourning the dead by burning paper money for their ghosts and makes him go away.
After forty-nine days of mourning, even their father stops going to the Buddhist temple in their New York City neighborhood. Their mother never appears as a ghost to her children, as Chinese legends say she might. Their father, who has been inviting colleagues to his apartment in order to advance in his career as a university chemist, resumes this practice. He asks his daughters to serve food and drinks to people such as his boss Brad Delmonte, who shows a vague sexual interest in Emily, but she hates the man. Emily promises Claudia that she will leave their father when she turns eighteen.
Four to five years later, the girls' father asks Emily not to go out with her friends on the eve of Gujie, the Chinese spirit festival, when ancestral ghosts are said to visit their surviving family members, who should stay at home to see them. Emily asks Claudia to trim her hair for a night out and defies her father by leaving. Distraught, the father tells Claudia that Delmonte has passed him over for a promotion and that he will no longer socialize with his colleagues. He returns with an urn and lights some incense to protect Emily while she is away from home that night.
Eventually, Emily moves out and graduates from college in California, while Claudia stays home and attends Columbia University. Claudia is a sophomore when she comes home to find that her father has had a stroke. She comforts her father and calls an ambulance, and he asks her to call Emily. Their father dies that night in the hospital, before Emily arrives. Their father is cremated, and Emily decides not to have a Buddhist ceremony but allows only a small reception at their apartment. This is attended by their father's colleagues and two of his Chinese students, who tell Emily that tonight is Gujie again. When the guests leave, Emily asks Claudia to cut her hair really short, in defiance of Chinese beliefs in luscious hair as an ancestral gift, and she obliges. That night, while sleeping in her old bed next to Claudia's, Emily sees the ghost of her father, although Claudia does not share this experience.