hungry ghost festival

most of you chinese people out there are probably aware about the annual 7th month of the lunar calendar which is also known as the ghost month.thats when all hell breaks loose and also thats when you all see your neighbors burning joss sticks and offerings during the beginning of the month and during the climax which is the 15th day, foods and various other offerings will be prepared and offered in those households to the 'invisible guests'

skeptical chinese people might associate recent rise in the number of unfortunate incidents like automobile accidents, robberies, fire, injuries, deaths and etc. to works of notorious wandering spirits. one thing that ive noticed is, buses kept crashing since the beginning of this year's ghost month. it today's paper, a triton bus crashed leaving 1 innocent passenger dead.

my dad will particularly remind us to be extra careful and alert during this month and not to come back home late at night or better not to go out at night! hah...like yesterday night, when i was walking towards my car, i tripped on a isolated metal from a concrete beam used to block people's car from parking on the spot on the way to my car. the place was dark and things happened so fast! the moment i knew i tripped on something, my whole body was already lying flat out on the road! i had bruises from the palm of my hand till my feet. so is this the work of some notorious invisible being residing in swinburne or just my pure luck or my own carelessness?

my another 'experience' with this 'ghost month' would have been my mums car. it was unexpectedly delivered during august, which is the ghost month and it had strings of minor till major accidents ever since it was out of the showroom till my mum nearly sold the car because she was 'frustrated' with it. but everything stopped when she sent the car to a priest to have it blessed. the car never experienced anymore accidents at all pun after that(4-5 years already!)

yesterday, i read an article in the sunday times about this ghost month thing. it appears that we should avoid purchasing anything 'big' such as houses, cars, getting married or whatever that 'invisible beings' can live in them during the ghost month. 1 more interesting thing to note is that, we should not pluck flowers too during this month because it is said that single unmarried woman/girl ghosts will reside in them and if u pluck them they will follow you. and if ure a guy, she will take this kinda attachments as you're goin to be married to them! omg...lol

even though im a christian, its not for me to believe in this kinda things but still, i want to choose to play it safe by abiding all those 'rules' that people 'say'. for this kinda superstition things have no perfect answers.