Yellow Mums' Day: Exploring Full Moon Offerings Tradition in Hue, Vietnam

As soon as I figured out the purpose of all those fruit-filled tables and on which days they were set up, I started looking forward to the next opportunity to photograph Cúng Rằm. The offerings on the last new moon were noticeably more modest so I began counting down the days until the next full moon to go out with my camera and document this beautiful tradition.

With this in mind, I went for a walk on November 14, 2024, on the eve of the full moon.

If anyone missed my post from a month ago, Cung Ram is a Vietnamese tradition of making offerings to the deceased on the day of the full moon (and the new moon too). Temporary altars (usually folding tables actually) are set up in front of homes and businesses, decorated with flowers, typically yellow chrysanthemums, with various offerings, mostly food, but sometimes also cigarettes and betel. Another integral part of the altar is joss paper (ritual money).

These fake notes are often purely decorative:

or they imitate American 100-dollar notes or other real money:

At the end of the ceremony, joss paper is burned. You see how it happens later in the post.

As for food, the deceased have access to it while the incense burns. At least, I found this statement on r/VietNam:

The ancestors get a chance while the incense burns. After that it "fine if you're not gonna eat it

Another thing to quote:

My mom always said that the ancestors eat the spiritual part and bless the food in the process

These tables are placed throughout the day but a significant portion of them appear in the late afternoon before dark. The shot above, for instance, was taken at 4:48 pm.

And this was at 5:08 pm:

They are only arranging the offerings, while someone is already finishing the ceremony:

Yes, that's what I mentioned earlier - burning joss paper as "symbolic representations of material possessions... ...reinforcing the strong bond between the living and the departed" - beautiful formulation I found in this curious research article.

Many people use pans the size of a bucket, all of the same design, as shown in the photo above, for burning joss paper.

Others burn paper on the streets.

The described ritual has a flavor of Vietnamese Folk Religion. However, it is considered a Buddhist tradition of Vietnam and has its roots in Uposatha. It's quite common for religions to entwine each other in Asia. But it's common for some parts of Europe too where Christianity absorbed a lot from the preceded paganism.

As for foreigners, Cung Ram is a beautiful living tradition that can be witnessed right in the streets of Vietnam. The short moment of praying is a thing of privacy, as for the rest, people are only happy that their efforts have caught the eye of a foreigner with a camera.

My late afternoon walk was wonderful but, with the dark coming, things became even more saturated.

Tables with food felt unexpected, theatrical, and surreal,

like if a piece of someone's country veranda ended up in the middle of a noisy street.

After the ritual ends, flowers are thrown away or become spontaneous decorations of walls, trees, fences, and all unexpected places.

Meanwhile, more flowers are waiting for a chance to become part of Cung Ram altars:

Along streets and at markets,

until night, vendors sell the hottest product of the day, yellow flowers.

Vibrant colors, the smoke of incense, the joy of togetherness and creativity, and the mystical 👻 powers of the full moon converge into a single whole on this day of remembrance for the dead. That is Cung Ram. 😎

More Southeast Asia adventures to come, stay tuned! Check out my previous posts on my personal Travelfeed or Worldmappin map.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on November 14, 2024, in Hue, Vietnam.