Most of August is Ghost Month here in Taiwan. Ghost month is actually the entire seventh lunar month of the year so the dates change but it usually falls at least partly in August.
Ghost month is all about celebrating (and appeasing) the spirits of Taiwanese ancestors. During the first day of the month the gates of the underworld are opened and ghosts can return to this world and wander around for the whole month until at the end the gates close again and ghosts return to their place until next year.
All sorts of rituals are performed to make sure these ghosts don't overstay their welcome (and probably also as an act of worship). Especially during the Ghost Festival, the 15th of the lunar month, people make serious efforts to keep the ghosts at bay, lighting paper money and incense in front of homes and shops, offering all sorts of snacks from produce to cookies to alcohol. This is done in hopes that the ghosts will stay outside the home or shop, enjoying themselves, and forget to come inside and take up residence.
Walking around yesterday, I saw a lot of tents set up outside large office complexes and apartment buildings with rows and rows of tables. I couldn't figure it out for a while, but on my way back home I stumbled on this.
Obviously these were set up to let people perform their Ghost Festival rituals in an orderly way. I guess it would be pretty chaotic if all these people set up their own little tables with cookies and incense and juice. Best to keep it all in one confined space.
Money burning is another important ritual. No not real money. Buddhists buy stacks and stacks of fake paper money that they burn in small kilns. I've heard ghost festival referred to also as National Pollution Day.
I walked through a produce market and was kind of surprised that more people weren't buying fruits and vegetables after reading an article in The China Post about the cost of produce rising 20-30 percent over the weekend ahead of the Ghost Festival. Maybe everyone had already stocked up.
Obviously I wasn't the only person confused by the lunar calendar stuff. Making my way through an underground shopping center on my way to the temple, I ran into this.
