People celebrate ghost month in both eastern and western countries. The ghost month is in July in the east, and in October in the west. In Taiwan, people celebrate many holidays including eastern and western ghost months.
In the eastern ghost month and other related holidays in Asia. People burn paper money, paper cars and paper houses to the ancestors, hoping they have a better life in the ghost world.
Some say that Hell only opens the gate once a year in July, the ghosts are so hungry and dirty, people prepare the feast in front of the door of the houses, companies and stores, they also leave a bowl of water and a clean towel for the ghosts to clean them self.
There are many ghost movies and related entertainments in the ghost month. People are more frightened walking in the dark than in the other months, and blame any odd events on the ghosts. The god statues sell better as well. People do respect eastern ghosts and the eastern ghost month in Taiwan.
A supermarket advertising in Taiwan explains it all:
On the contrary, the atmosphere of western ghost month in Taiwan is fun. Maybe only children at school, teenager’ club and adults night club celebrate the western ghost month. People celebrate Halloween by dressing up. People pay more attention to the clothes, makeup and shoes. People enjoy the parties till midnight. Though there are many Hollywood ghost movies, but they don’t make the ghost month terrible. Nobody feel scared in western ghost month in Taiwan.
Are western ghosts less scary? People seem truly to believe there are eastern ghosts, but treat western ghost as entertainment characters. Maybe it’s all to do with the culture. Because the eastern ghosts are our related ancestors, we can imagine those ghosts’ feelings, their lives before death, their suffering in hell, etc. Those ghosts look like us, they are so close to our life, so they are more accepted as real ghosts by Taiwanese.
It’s hard to combine western ghosts with our culture. Because in our ghost stories, there are no vampires, witches and werewolves, etc. Western ghosts are far away from us, people do not easily accept them as real ghosts. In the movies, vampires are the same concept as hot, good looking men, not terrible creatures. That’s another reason why we combine western ghosts for entertainment.
There are terrible movies in Hollywood as well, but Japan’s and Thailand’s terrible movie are the most terrible movies that I’ve watched. People are scared to stay alone after watched them. These movies are successful because the scenes and characters are so close to audience’s life. Yet in Hollywood horror movies, every building, street, and even the food is different to what we see every day.
For Taiwanese, the eastern ghost story and film scenes are more close to our life, so we tend to accept them as really ghosts. That’s why we respect them and do a lot of things to celebrate eastern ghost month.
Maybe western ghosts are terrible as well, just because they are not combined with our life and culture, people treat them like any foreign entertainment. Vampire, Michael Jackson, chocolate, they are foreign products.
What if a movie was based on a Taiwanese person becoming a vampire, and the house and the clothes were typically Taiwanese? It surely is combined with our culture. I guess I’ll not feel terrified at all, and I’ll be more excited to see the actors muscle, chest and butt…..well, if he is naked, it would be even better!
