Ghost Month

I was told another of the Chinese traditions yesterday. It looks like the seventh month of the moon calendar, which is this month of August, is the month of ghosts and spirits, and by extension of the deceased. According to chinese beliefs, this is the month when ghosts run free across the earth. And on the fifteenth day of the month, when there is the full moon, is the most active day, because is the day that the gates of Heaven, Earth and Hell are open. It is also the day when the deceased visit the living. This should be today or tomorrow.

Tradition says that you must make offerings to the ghosts/spirits/deceased to pacify them, to flatter them or to soften their suffering, etc, and so you don't call on bad luck. The offerings are varied: put some food in front of your house, with incense sticks, so that the ghosts can feed on them; burn paper money (a kind of paper I would say they manufacture for these occasions), or even to build replicas of all kind of objects (I saw burning something resembling a sail ship). I also read that there can be one seat at the table at home for dinner with food for the deceased. I was told that it was tomorrow, but I already saw many tables in front of houses or shops today, or in front of a karaoke or at the entrance to a parking lot, with all kinds of food: fruit, rice, lunchboxes, dorito bags, cookie boxes, sweets, beer cans. Everything you can imagine. And I saw people burning paper money in the portable brasiers that are often around. There is a strong smell of smoke and incense in some places. Very curious. I was also told that there can be replicas of cell phones or similar things. Maybe the dead use them?


The food can be eaten afterwards, but as they believe that all things have a spirit inside, the ghosts will eat the spirit of food. Everything is very animistic, which I think is an important part of the popular beliefs.

Of course, as it always happens when somebody tells me one of this stories and there are more than one taiwanese around, the sentence "that's not exactly like you say" usually pops up. So, I am sure that there are many mistakes in what I wrote. There is not anything simple here.