Ghost Month

I learned that today is 15th day of the 7th (lunar) month. On the 1st day the Gates of Hell open and allow to the ghosts to have a month break of Hell (and they say we in Balcans are having holidays and not doing nothing?! Chinese take it even when in depths of Hell!). We, still alive, have to feed them and finance them well. 15th day a feast is prepared for the ghosts at home, incenses and the paper money burned (and 'leftovers' eaten). So, this was today, and in the temples also was much bai-bai (=prayers). I went to the City God Temple in Hsinchu, and saw interesting procession passing in front of the temple.

Statues were taken around, I had impression that they were bowing to the something (or someone) held there in the stage:

Streets here gain even more color with such events:

There was a kind of program going on, even some acrobacies were performed by the performers-here are two acrobats in the body of a dragon:

They jumped on these quite high pillars-if one would fall, it would not be funny, no any protection, and they were really jumping wildly

"Dragon" was really good, like alive

Drums and fireworks, crowd, rush hour in the city-all together really gave an Chinese street event atmosphere, as in the movies.
Statues from the shrine had their walking day :-)

Some figures or whatever it was, were carried in such lectics, intentionally shaken badly when passing in front of the stage

The biggest fun was for kids, finally something more funny than TV shows:

As I say, I did not have any idea about the background of the fair, what was the motivation of such procession. I expected to see only "bai-bai" in the temple, and there I found such fair in front of the temple, nobody inside during the procession. When Meiyunn, my 'informer' here explains a bit to me, I'll write down what was this all about.