Sart Jeen: The Hungry Ghost Festival in Thailand Explained

Sart Jeen (Thai: สารทจีน, also written Sart Chin or Wan Sart Chin) is the Thai name for the Chinese Ghost Festival, observed by Thais of Chinese descent on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month [1], [6]. Families set out food for household deities, for their ancestors and for spirits with no descendants, and burn paper offerings, in the belief that the gates of the underworld open that month [1], [7]. It is a different festival from Sat Thai, the Thai Buddhist merit-making day held in the tenth lunar month [17].

Key facts

What does Sart Jeen mean? Names of the festival

The English Wikipedia article on Sat Thai notes that its name distinguishes it from the Chinese-influenced Ghost Festival, which Thai calls Sat Chin [17]. Thai-language references give the formal Chinese name as Zhongyuan Jie (จงหยวนเจี๋ย), meaning the Zhongyuan Festival, and the alternative Gui Jie (กุ่ยเจี๋ย), glossed as "festival of ghosts" [6], [9].

Thai PBS NOW adds that Teochew speakers call the festival ชิกว็วยะปั่ว, which it glosses as the "mid-seventh-month" (festival) [6]. English-language writing uses "Hungry Ghost Festival", "Ghost Festival" and "Yulanpen Festival", the last being the Buddhist name [2].

Where does the Hungry Ghost Festival come from?

The festival has a Buddhist and a Taoist ancestry [2], and Thai accounts add their own retellings of the legend [1], [9].

The Ullambana Sutra and Maudgalyayana

The Buddhist name, Yulanpen (Ullambana), comes from the Yulanpen Sutra, a Mahayana text about filial piety [2], [3]. Wikipedia's article on the sutra records two Chinese versions in the Taisho canon, T685 and T686. T685 is traditionally attributed to the translator Dharmaraksa (265–311 CE), while T686 is described as the work of an unknown translator in the Eastern Jin period [3]. The sutra has often been regarded as apocryphal, though the scholar Karashima Seishi argues that it is a genuine translation [3].

In the story, the disciple Maudgalyayana uses his supernormal powers to look for his dead parents and finds his mother reborn as a hungry ghost. The rice he offers her turns into burning coal. The Buddha then advises that gifts to the monastic community at the end of the monsoon retreat, on the 15th day of the seventh month, can help dead parents, with the community transferring the merit [3].

Wikipedia's article on Maudgalyayana adds the Pali-tradition background. Called Moggallana in Pali, he was born with the name Kolita, and the Anguttara Nikaya describes him as foremost in psychic powers [4]. The article also says that scholars have noted similarities between his rescue of his mother and the Phra Malai legend, which it calls influential in Thailand and Laos [4].

The Taoist Zhongyuan side

On the Taoist side, the name "Zhongyuan" comes from the "Three Yuan" theory, which Wikipedia links to the Three Great Emperor-Officials. The same article says the festival flourished under the Tang dynasty, whose rulers favoured Taoism, and that "Zhongyuan" became its established name [2]. According to the article, Taoists and Buddhists both perform rituals aimed at easing the suffering of the dead [2].

How Thai sources retell the legend

Thai-language articles tell two legends. In the first, Yama (ยมบาล) checks the register of souls and sends good spirits to heaven and bad ones to hell, so people make merit for the bad ones and the gates of hell are said to be opened for them [1], [9]. The second is the story of Mulian (มู่เหลียน), whom these articles identify with Phra Maha Moggallana [1], [9], [10]. In this version his mother is reborn in hell, other spirits seize the food he brings her, and the Buddha gives him a text to recite and tells him to offer food every year in the month the gates open [1], [9].

What is a hungry ghost? Preta and pret

Wikipedia's article on the preta describes it as a Sanskrit term for a being that suffers from extreme hunger and thirst, usually rendered in English as "hungry ghost" [5]. In Pali the form is peta, and the article names the Petavatthu as an early source [5]. Pretas are depicted with distended bellies and long thin necks, which the article reads as a metaphor for large appetites and little ability to satisfy them [5]. They are said to have been deceitful, greedy, jealous or corrupt in a previous life [5].

In Thai folklore the same figure is the pret (เปรต). The Preta article quotes a description of pret as abnormally tall with tiny mouths, and notes that parents sometimes warn children that rudeness could lead to becoming a pret [5].

When is Sart Jeen held in Thailand?

Thai sources give the same rule: the 15th day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar [1], [6], [7], [9]. Wikipedia's Ghost Festival article adds that in parts of southern China the festival is held on the 14th, and that the whole seventh month is generally regarded as Ghost Month [2].

The Gregorian date changes every year. The Ghost Festival article lists 6 September 2025, 27 August 2026, 16 August 2027 and 3 September 2028 [2]. A Thairath article published on 2 September 2020 gave 2 September of that year as the day [9], and Thai Post reported the 2026 offering day in Phitsanulok on 27 August 2026 [15]. Pattaya Mail reported a celebration on 31 August 2012 [13].

How do Thai-Chinese families observe Sart Jeen?

Thai media describe a day built around offering tables rather than a single public ceremony, and what follows is reported practice rather than rules [6], [10].

The three offering sets

Thai sources describe three sets of offerings, one for each kind of recipient [1], [6], [8]:

1. Household deities (เจ้าที่), offered in the morning with savoury and sweet food, tea, Chinese liquor and gold and silver paper [1], [6].
2. Ancestors, offered in the late morning, with the dishes the ancestors liked, cooked rice and tea according to the number of ancestors [1], [6]. Thai PBS NOW gives roughly 09:00–11:00 for this set [6].
3. Wandering spirits with no relatives (สัมภเวสี), offered in the afternoon outside the house [1], [6], [7].

Thai PBS NOW says the third set was traditionally placed in the open, and that today it may be placed under the eaves of the house but outside the threshold [6], [7]. Thai media call these spirits ไป๊ฮ๊อเฮียตี๋ (hohiatee), which they translate as "good brothers" [1], [10]. Thai PBS NOW says the rite exists so that Chinese who died in Thailand without descendants receive offerings like everyone else [7].

According to Thai PBS NOW, each dish for these spirits has an incense stick placed on it, and afterwards rice and salt are scattered at the eaves to send the spirits back [7]. It also reports that households share the offerings with neighbours who did not make their own, especially poorer ones, which the article presents as a form of giving [6], [7].

Foods that Thai sources mention

Thai articles list khanom kheng (a steamed rice cake) and khanom thian among the sweets, and the first is described as needing a red dot at its centre [1], [10]. Daily News explains the red dot by saying that red is the colour of auspiciousness [10]. Thai Wikipedia's article on khanom thian presumes that Chinese in Thailand adopted this Thai merit-making sweet as an offering for Sart Chin and Chinese New Year, with khanom kheng the older Chinese New Year sweet [22]. Other items named in Thai press include whole chicken, duck, braised pork, eggs, squid and fish, and khanom thuai fu and cotton-wool sponge cake [8], [10].

Thai sources attribute symbolic meanings to these foods. Thairath's 2018 food guide, for example, links whole chicken to career progress and khanom thian to a bright, thriving life [8]. A 2026 Thairath English guide offers similar readings for sweets and fruit and frames them as spiritual belief [21]. They are reported meanings, not properties of the food.

Joss paper and paper burning

Burning paper is part of the day in Thai reports [6], [8], [9]. Thai PBS NOW says gold and silver paper is burned in the belief that it can be sent on to ancestors [6]. A Thairath report from 2020 describes drawing three or four chalk circles in the yard. Paper is burned in the inner circle to invite ancestors, and a second batch is burned outside the circles for ownerless spirits, accompanied by a sheet called อ่วงแซจี๊ that the article likens to a travel permit [9].

Wikipedia's article on joss paper defines it as paper made into burnt offerings in Chinese ancestral worship. It lists three broad categories, cash, gold and silver, and notes that gold is mostly for deities and silver for ancestors and other spirits [20]. It also notes that temples often have large furnaces outside their main gates [20]. It reports the belief behind the offerings as provision for an afterlife imagined as similar to earthly life [20].

Reported taboos and customs of the seventh month

Thairath's English edition says the seventh month is regarded as the spirit month, when the realms of humans and spirits are believed to overlap, and lists three taboos: no auspicious events such as weddings or housewarmings, no home repairs, and no long-distance night travel [11].

Thai PBS NOW reports that auspicious events, especially weddings, are generally not held in this month, and that work and trade stop on the offering day so that the roads are free for the spirits [6]. It also says Teochew families do not offer mango, because the local word for it is close to ซวย, a Thai word for bad luck [6]. The sources report these as beliefs and do not test them [6], [11].

Where is Sart Jeen observed in Thailand?

The examples below are individual press reports, not a survey.

Bangkok and Yaowarat

Pattaya Mail reported on 15 August 2011 that Thais of Chinese descent observed the festival across the country. It says people in Bangkok visited the Tiger God Shrine, and that Chinese descendants in Yaowarat, the city's Chinatown, put food out in front of their homes and shops in the morning [12].

A 2023 thesis from Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep studied a ritual called the Yogacara Ulka-Mukha ritual in Bangkok's Chinatown, based on three months of fieldwork. The abstract says the ritual is organised each year, around the Ghost Festival, by the Jin Nikaya (a Chinese sect within Thai Buddhism) and by lay Buddhist societies [14]. It reports an average cost of about 50,000 baht, a figure given in the 2023 thesis [14].

Pattaya, 2012

A Pattaya Mail report of 13 September 2012 describes a celebration on 31 August at the Sawang Boriboon Thammasathan Foundation in Naklua, where people lit incense and offered fruit, meat and flowers. The article says money was raised for coffins for people without relatives [13].

Phitsanulok, 2026

A Thai Post report from 27 August 2026 described a quieter observance than usual at two shrines in Phitsanulok, with fewer visitors and fewer offerings [15]. A shrine committee member quoted by the paper described the tradition as worshipping the household's sacred objects first, going to the shrine, then returning to honour the ancestors at home [15]. The paper linked the quieter mood to a sluggish economy and higher prices [15].

What is the Por Tor Festival in Phuket?

Phuket's version is known as the Por Tor (or Poh Tor) Festival. Thai PBS World describes it as the Hungry Ghost Festival of Old Phuket Town, a place with many Chinese descendants [16]. In its 2023 report the festival began on the first day of the seventh lunar month, 30 August that year, and covered the whole month of ghosts [16].

The report names the Por Tor Gong shrine in Phuket Town as the focal point, and says it honours Por Tor, described as the guardian of the underworld and shown in artworks depicting judgement [16]. Families, it says, set a table with rice bowls, roast duck, chicken, pork belly, tea and rice wine, with incense lit in the middle of the rice bowls. Once the incense burns out, the spirits are thought to have partaken of the meal, and the family then eats [16].

Public events at the shrines include blessing ceremonies, Cantonese opera and folk dances [16]. It also describes the red ang ku cake, shaped like a turtle and made from glutinous rice flour, sugar and green beans. The report says it is offered at the Por Tor shrine and "symbolises luck, longevity, and wisdom", which is its stated meaning, not a claim of effect [16]. Thai PBS World says the festival shares a kinship with Thailand's Sart Chin, and that visitors need not be of Chinese descent to take part [16].

Sart Jeen versus Sat Thai: how they differ

Sat Thai (สารทไทย) is a separate Thai festival. English Wikipedia describes it as a mid-year festival observed especially in southern Thailand, held on the new moon at the end of the tenth lunar month [17]. It says the festival was originally animist, with Buddhist elements added, and that "Sat" comes from the Pali sarada, "autumnal" [17].

Thai Wikipedia describes the same observance as Sat Duan Sip (ประเพณีสารทเดือนสิบ), giving it as the 15th waning day of the tenth month and calling it originally a Brahmin rite that was later adapted into Buddhist merit-making for the dead [18]. The two Wikipedia articles therefore describe the origin differently [17], [18].

In the south, Thai Wikipedia says, spirits are "received" on the first waning day and "sent back" on the 15th, and in the ching pret custom food is placed on a stand, monks chant, and people then scramble for the food [18]. It names Nakhon Si Thammarat as the strongest centre of the tradition [18]. The Nation described a 2020 ching pret at Wat Wang Yai in Songkhla, where food and drink are set on a high platform and local people take the offerings afterwards [19].

Thai Wikipedia cites Phraya Anuman Rajadhon, writing in the Royal Institute encyclopedia, as saying that ching pret resembles the Chinese practice of throwing alms for ghosts without relatives but differs in purpose and method [18]. In short, Sart Jeen is a seventh-month Chinese-Thai observance with three offering tables [1], [6], while Sat Thai is a tenth-month Thai observance [17], [18].

Is Sart Jeen changing?

Thai PBS NOW says its account draws on a Silpa-Watthanatham magazine article dated August 2016 (BE 2559) titled, in Thai, "Sart Chin: an important festival that is fading", and states that in Thailand Sart Jeen is a major festival alongside Chinese New Year [6]. The Phitsanulok report quotes people who linked fewer visitors in 2026 to the economy and to younger family members working instead of attending [15]. These are single reports and do not by themselves show a national trend.