While walking my dog, Tiger, we came across a classic Ghost Month offering.  This particular one was quite large, as it appeared to be a combined effort of many tenants in a large office building here in busy downtown Taipei.  Not all offerings are as abundant; many smaller privately-owned businesses make similar offerings to the dead throughout the city and country in lesser scale.

It's quite fascinating to witness public, roadside ceremonies complete with chanting, incense, offerings, rising flames and the like amidst busy pedestrian and automobile traffic.

(from www.lyberty.com)

According to Chinese folklore, there is an increase in the incidence of accidents and deaths during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, an occurrence attributed to underworld spirits visiting the earth during this time. During Ghost Month, people prepare big feasts to indulge the many roaming ghosts.

Eastern societies, unlike many western societies, traditionally try to appease the dead, rather than trying to banish them, by inviting them temporarily into the world of the living. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Taiwan during Ghost Month. On the first day of the seventh lunar month, 'Open Day' in hell is held, the gates to the underworld are opened and the spirits are allowed to cross over into the living world.
Not only do the Taiwanese accept these hauntings with admirable equanimity, they actually give their ethereal guests the full VIP 5-star treatment. At most offerings, huge banquet tables are set out in front of businesses, and mountains of fish, vegetables, meat and other delicacies are offered as sacrifice; hanging lanterns are erected to guide the ghosts to the table; non-stop operas entertain during dinner and fake money is burnt so that guests have a bit of pocket-money to spend when they return to hell.

This hospitality is not entirely altruistic - it's insurance against paranormal acts of retribution.