Keelung Ghost Festival

Keelung ghost festival

The Keelung Ghost Festival is a living ritual tradition practiced across the city every year during the seventh lunar month.

Rather than taking place at a single site, the festival unfolds through neighborhoods, temples, riverbanks, and everyday urban spaces, forming a ritual landscape woven into daily life in the port city.

What Is the Keelung Ghost Festival?

The Keelung Ghost Festival usually takes place between August and September, following the lunar calendar.

Ritual activities are organized by clan associations, local temple groups and neighborhood associations and are distributed across multiple sites throughout the city. Ceremonies include offerings, processions, and collective preparations, guided by customs passed down through generations.

For participants, these practices are part of everyday responsibility and communal life.

The Festival in the City

As a harbor city shaped by migration and maritime labor, Keelung’s Ghost Festival reflects the city’s layered social history.

Different neighborhoods take turns caring for ritual spaces, while streets and public areas temporarily become places of gathering and remembrance. The festival moves through daily life rather than interrupting it.

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How to Experience the Festival

For visitors unfamiliar with local ritual traditions, context is essential. We offer two ways to experience the Ghost Festival respectfully and meaningfully.

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Guided Walking Tours (Festival Season)

Limited guided walks led by local guides introduce key ritual sites, historical background, and how the festival functions within everyday urban spaces. Routes and schedules vary each year.
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Self-Guided Audio Walk (Year-Round)

A self-guided audio walk based on long-term documentation allows visitors to explore festival-related sites at their own pace.
Audio is accessed online; headphones are required.

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Why It Matters to the City

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The Ghost Festival is a reflection of how Keelung functions as a community.

Through repeated practices and shared responsibility, the festival connects neighborhoods, generations, and places. Cultural memory is carried through action rather than monuments, making the festival a core part of the Living Museum.

Ongoing Documentation

The Keelung Ghost Festival is documented as part of a long-term cultural project.

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Over the years, we have recorded the festival through articles, photography, documentary videos, and interviews with local participants. These materials focus on people, places, and everyday practices that sustain the festival. Selected documentation is shared as part of this ongoing cultural archive.
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Part of the Keelung Living Museum

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This project is part of the Keelung Living Museum, which views the city itself as a museum without walls.

Through walking routes, audio guides, exhibitions, and community archives, the Living Museum connects rituals, daily life, and shared memory across Keelung.

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