The seventh month of the chinese/lunar calender is called "ghost month." At this time ghosts freely walk around Taiwan doing ghost things.
What are ghost things?
Well crashing airplanes, drowning people at the beach, ruining your business, and going into people's homes to cause havoc. You know friendly Casper like things.
How do you protect yourself?
You make offerings to the ghosts so they won't hurt your home or business.
What do you offer?
Well anything you'd like, but normally it is various packaged snacks that you buy from a convenience store or drug store or supermarket, as well as fruit.
Once you have all these items you will normally put them on a table in front of your business or store, as seen in the picture. This is not really done so much for apartments anymore, but some bigger buildings will do this. The things are left there all day long for the ghosts to snack on, and at the end of the day everything is packed up.
What happens to the food?
Well the people just eat it. I always feel this is a bit strange as if you are truly sacrificing it, than you should burn it or something. If you are just eating it yourself, than essentially you are just buying the things you want to eat, putting them on a table for a few hours, and then eating them later. Not that i'm complaining though. All those left over snacks means when you are at work and a bit hungry you can pop into the kitchen area to have a snack left over from this event.
There is another part to the activities to make ghosts leave you alone, however I will leave this for another day as I am hoping to get a great picture for it.
Oh but wait. How can I avoid dying in a plane crash or being drowned at the beach?
Actually many Taiwanese don't travel at this time. Even though many of them admit that ghosts aren't going to crash their plane, they still usually make it a point not to travel during ghost month. I've even heard that at this time plane tickets in Taiwan are actually cheaper cause the demand for plane travel is so small. As for the beach, even though it's summer, most people don't go, and those who do will usually not go in the water.
Hmm...seems like a great time for me to get to the beach!
