The seventh month of the
Chinese lunar calendar, when the “Gates of Hell” are open to allow spirits of the
dead—those troubled spiritual vagabonds that failed to be reincarnated as another living being—to rejoin the land of the living for a month.
Hungry Ghost Month or Seventh Month believers would faithfully or fearfully offer
burnt paper gifts in the form of fake
money, branded goods, and electronic devices, or items believed to be desired by the deceased in the afterlife, to the
evil spirits roaming their surroundings.