Family Traditions

Written by Yshel Lok

Haunted Tea Rituals: A Halloween Tea Experience of Ancestors, Ghosts, and Healing at the Gregangelo Museum

As a child in Malaysia, one of my favorite moments was helping my grandmother prepare the ancestor’s altar. I would carefully pour tea into each tiny cup, set out fruits, flowers, and the favorite dishes of those who had passed before me. Together, we lit joss sticks, folded joss paper, and created a feast for spirits I had never met in this lifetime—my grandfather, my great-grandmother, and so many more who had already crossed over.

The Hungry Ghost Festival, rooted in Chinese tradition, is observed during the seventh lunar month, when it is believed the gates of the spirit world open and restless ancestors and wandering souls return to the living. Families make offerings of food, incense, and ritual performances to feed, comfort, and honor these spirits. While often surrounded by taboos, the essence of the festival is remembrance, healing, and compassion for both the ancestors and the unseen parts of ourselves.

What still lingers so vividly in my memory is that on our altar there were no photographs, no images of the departed. Each tiny cup of tea became their presence. My grandmother would tell me: this pour is for your great-grandmother, this one for your grand-aunt, this one for your grandfather. That was how I came to know them. Aside from my grandfather, I had no idea what they looked like, yet through the tea ritual I felt their existence, their place in my lineage.

Another mystery that fascinated me as a child was watching my grandmother and mother kneel before the altar. Sometimes they held joss sticks, other times Moon blocks (jiaobei), entering what seemed to me like long, flowing conversations with the unseen. To my young eyes, it was as if they were communing with another world. Only much later did I realize these moments were more than ritual—they were a way to consult with the ancestors, or perhaps with the Divine within themselves, their inner knowing. At a time when “therapy” was unheard of, these prayers became their tea therapy: an invisible form of guidance, emotional support, and release.

Celebrating Family Traditions Through Tea

Back then, I didn’t fully understand the meaning behind the Hungry Ghost Festival. I only knew the air felt charged, mysterious, sometimes heavy with fear because in our culture the month was wrapped in taboos and superstitions. And yet, as a child, I loved the intimacy of those moments: helping my grandmother, watching the incense smoke curl upward like bridges between worlds, tasting the quiet magic in the ritual.

Years later, after moving to the U.S., I began to see these traditions through a new lens. Experiencing Halloween tea parties and Día de los Muertos revealed to me the deeper beauty of honoring the dead, not with fear, but with remembrance, celebration, and love. I realized these rituals are not only about the ancestors outside of us, but also about the hungry ghosts within us—the unmet longings, unexpressed feelings, and forgotten stories we carry silently.

And here is where tea returns as my bridge. Through a mindful tea ceremony, I have found a way to sit in that same quiet dialogue my mother and grandmother once had, to pour a cup for my ancestors, and also for the unseen parts of myself that ache to be acknowledged. Each sip is a prayer, a remembrance, a conversation, a gentle release. Tea itself becomes therapy: a sacred companion, an altar, a mirror. It is why we created this special tea experience San Francisco can claim as uniquely its own, a blend of heritage and Halloween, ritual and play.

In this liminal time of year, as the season turns and remembrance stirs, every cup of tea becomes an offering, honoring our ancestors, tending the ghosts within, and awakening the hidden magic of silence.

So come join us for the Halloween edition of Tea in Wonderland at the Gregangelo Museum, where we weave together many traditions on a journey through this inexplicable place. Here, your stories are shared, acceptance reigns, and healing begins with every step of the odyssey.

These mindful tea rituals not only honor our ancestors but also strengthen the bonds of family traditions, passing stories and practices from one generation to the next.