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I haven't been here for very long so I thought this was interesting:

Ghost Month, Taiwan
When I was walking last week and walked by a very large Buddhist temple, I decided it would be a good idea to go inside. Inside there was four banquet tables covered with food, candles, etc. (similar to Harry Potter feasts at Hogwart�s). I was curious, however, as to why there wasn�t one single person sitting at the table and eating. There were a few observers standing to the sides but no one actually sitting and eating the food. I was just going to add it to the many other strange things I�ve experienced since I arrived in Asia but I thought this one was too good to pass up, without documenting. I personally am a non-believer of ghosts and really want to know what kind of drugs these people were on when they made up this elaborate holiday. I have been noticing that there are quite a few trucks driving around playing traditional Chinese music from a loudspeaker lately and I think I just saw a marching band� but I think I see a lot of things here that aren�t really there. So I asked my employer about this, who is an eccentric woman and seems to be the type who would believe in this sort of thing� (judging this by her choice of clothing / words / etc. She sat me down and gave me the low-down on what ghost month is all about as talking in a very serious, somewhat hushed voice, as to not be overheard the many many people around us (we were sitting alone in the corner of a bookstore� there were only �ghosts� who could�ve heard us): Here�s the story of the Taiwanese, �Ghost Month.�
The seventh month of Taiwan�s lunar calendar is better known as �ghost month�. Various precautions and prohibitions are followed and numerous festivals, rituals and banquets are held to ward off or appease the potentially malevolent spirits of the dead, which are believed to wander the earth during this month.
Though the precise origins of ghost month are now lost, the related traditions are rooted in Han Chinese beliefs about the afterlife and the central role of ancestral worship in their religions. Taiwanese believe that a person�s spirit continues to exist after the death of the physical body, either in a parallel realm or separate hell. Since they are capable of affecting the lives of the living, spirits need to be induced to act benevolently rather than malevolently. Daily offerings are made to ancestral spirit tablets on family alters, and to temple deities, many of whom are historic figures promoted to divine status after benevolent of heroic careers.
Certain categories of spirits can be particularly troublesome, however. Women who died before marriage are said to be potent sources of yin � as opposed to yang � which need careful channeling for communal good. (According to ancient Chinese philosophy yin forces are more dark, passive and feminine, while yang forces are more light, active and masculine.) People who commit suicide or die by drowning are also considered risky, but perhaps most worrying are those �hungry ghosts� who do not have filial descendents making offerings to them.
Euphemistically known as �good brethren�, it is common to invite priests to hold ceremonies and make offerings tot hem whenever a new building or business is opened. Nevertheless, the opening of the gates of hell on the first day of the seventh lunar month, to their closing on the last, this is everyone�s concern.
People will rarely start a new business during this period; many that are already up and running do not even operate and a great many people follow the prohibition not to swim, because they fear to be drowned by ghosts living in the water.
Other taboos routinely followed include not leaving clothes outside overnight (hungry ghosts like to wear people�s clothes), and not sleeping with disheveled hair (ghosts can be recognized by their disheveled hair, hemless garments, lack of shadow, strange voices, red glow and shortsightedness), since ghosts might mistake you for one of their own. Black clothes should not be worn, as ghosts are attracted to black.
Even though many young people may no longer wish to follow the traditional prohibition on marriage in Ghost Month, with parents footing the bill, weddings are rare. It is, of course, a good time for �spirit brides and grooms� (those who died in childhood or before marriage) to be �married� by means of temple ceremonies.
People are advised not to have babies (which requires self-restraint around the 10th lunar month), not to celebrate a person�s birthday (which just seems mean), and not to conduct funerals (as they are malevolent ghosts around who might influence the rebirth of the dead person) during the Ghost Month. So adding to the numbers by burying yet another dead person is not a good idea, as he might not be able to return to the underworld and be stuck in limbo� between earth and the underworld. So if someone dies, I guess you just try to preserve the body for an entire month, until it�s safe to bury them�? Sounds stinky to me.
Above all, one should avoid using the word �ghost� (hence the euphemism �good brethren�); even ghost month is more commonly called �folk custom month�. Similarly, with ghosts all around, it is advised not to use any language careless, lest they should take you at your word. One is also advised against whistling, as ghosts are attracted to whistling and will come to your home.
As mentioned before, the origin of ghost month is unclear. It can probably be traced back to a Buddhist ceremony, known in Chinese as PuDu, which is now the name of the feast for �hungry ghosts� held around the middle (full moon) of the month. Normal food is said to turn to fire on the lips of ghosts, so they are offered special foods prepared while reciting sutras. This food is laid out on long tables, sometimes with individual settings. No one will sit down to eat but, when priests or monastics have ascertained through divination that the ghosts are full, local people will take the food home. (The ghosts are said to only eat the salt off the food. This is because of one woman�s account that the leftover food tasted �bland� and �saltless�.)
While PuDu, or the Buddhist �Water and Land Ceremonies� can be found at every temple and in every community, a few places celebrate in different ways. In fishing communities, people can be found quietly launching floating lanterns onto the sea. There is the even more remarkable �grappling with ghosts� where teams of young men compete to climb greased tree trunks, swing themselves over an elevated platform and then scramble up bamboo lattices to be the first to cut down a flag. In addition to winning the town�s admiration and prizes in cash and kind, victors sell the flags to fishing boat captains who believe they will protect their boats and employees through another year in what has always been a hazardous profession.
This year�s ghost month begins on July 25th and ends on August 23rd. In fact, in a slightly more complicated mathematical twist, there will be a �leap seventh month� in 2007, starting on August 24th and ending on September 21st. Leap months are used to keep the �agricultural calendar� in time with the solar one, for which reason Taiwan�s traditional calendar is actually a lunisolar, rather than lunar calendar.
While consecutive ghost months might sound like bad news, I guess I can look on the bright side: with swimming out of favor with locals, I�ll have all the water for myself during the hot Taiwanese summer. If any strange things happen to me while I'm amongst all of these ghosts this month, I'll write another note condoning the existence of ghosts on earth. Send me your feedback of what you think of ghost month. Asia just keeps getting stranger and stranger to me�