In Chinese tradition, the thirteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month , in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. During the Qingming Festival the living descendants pay homage to their ancestors and on Ghost Day, the deceased visit the living.

On the thirteenth day the three realms of Heaven, Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths. Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mache form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors. Elaborate meals would be served with empty seats for each of the deceased in the family treating the deceased as if they are still living. Ancestor worship is what distinguishes Qingming Festival from Ghost Festival because the former includes paying respects to all deceased, including the same and younger generations, while the latter only includes older generations. Other festivities may include, burying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies giving directions to the lost ghosts and spirits of the ancestors and other deities.

every year july 14 is pray for the outside ghost and we need to prepare some food,vegetable ,sweet and joss paper and incense.......
every year i will help my mother to prepare all the thing and put it at outside to pray....
almost 7:15p.m, my parents and i are ready to start praying( every year oso vry early to pray i dunno why we always the first to start pray and first to finish praying....
haha...maybe my mother scared it la......
first we open all the joss paper and put it on the floor.after that,put the food,vegetable and sweet to the plastic crockery.then we burn the incense and put it in the metal cup that i ready early......
while all the thing is ready then we can start pray oledii.....
while the incense is burn untill mid then we can start burn the joss paper oledii.....
bec we r praying at the beside of road,we need to take care and din let the joss paper burn to the outside for road scared against the car........