The West has Halloween for ghosts and ghouls. In Taiwan there is also a holiday to fete the departed spirits of the underworld Ghost Festival, a popular occasion celebrated throughout China on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month.In Taiwan, Ghost Festival is passed by slaughtering a pig and sheep, which together with a prodigious table of wine and meat is offered to one's ancestors and ghosts from the underworld..
The Chinese believe that the dead become ghosts roaming between Heaven and earth. Spirits without descendants to care for them are prayed to during Ghost Festival so that they may also enjoy the warmth of life among the living. This custom, an extension of the traditional Chinese ethic of "universal love," has been woven together with the didactic legend "Moginlin Saving His Mother From Hades," giving Ghost Festival positive significance as a time for remembering the importance of filial piety.
Today, Ghost Festival is more modest than in the past both in grandeur and scale as the government encourages more frugal forms of prayer in folk customs. This kind of economy is an apt realization of virtuous action that the Festival has always meant to foster.
