KUALA LUMPUR: Hungry ghosts make the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar an inauspicious time. Businessmen avoid travelling, couples wait until after to get married and companies put off renovations.
This year is a leap year and there are two seventh months, making the eight weeks until Sept 21 a sluggish time for all kinds of businesses.
Mobile phone technician Jacky Low, 25, postponed moving his service centre in Setapak here until the end of September.
"I do not want anything bad to happen."
He said he was not superstitious and does not believe in ghosts and spirits. "It?s just tradition."
A leap month occurs every three years for the Chinese lunar calendar to keep pace with the solar calendar.
The first seventh month began on July 25, with many Chinese businessmen and traders observing the Hungry Ghosts festival in the week of Aug 8.
The leap seventh month begins on Aug 24.
The Chinese believe the gates of Hell open on the first day of the month and lost souls are free to roam in the world of the living. Anyone who crosses their path would be sorry.
Chew Kee Hui, chairman of Heritage Community Selangor Hokkien Association, said the Chinese community normally observed the first or actual ghost month.
To the Buddhists, the seventh month is a time to show their gratitude to the departed parents and ancestors.
Hotels and Chinese restaurants usually see a drastic drop in the wedding banquet business during the seventh month.
"We have only a few Chinese couples who are having their wedding banquets," said Chai Mei Ling, catering manager for Hotel Concorde in Kuala Lumpur.
Come October, though, the hotel will have a non-stop flow of wedding guests and bridal couples.
The Tai Thong chain of restaurants is not seeing many big celebrations either.
Its Jalan Ampang outlet has seen the wedding business drop more than 50 per cent.
Nicholas Ng, the SS2 outlet supervisor, said there had been only one wedding dinner during this double seventh month.
There are some who choose not to follow some of the old ways, especially in urban areas and among the younger generation.
Alvin Gan Fatt Yan, 30, and Ivy Thoo Chong Foong, 28, tied the knot on Wednesday.
"We are not superstitious," said Gan after registering their marriage at the registration office of the Thean Hou Temple.
Another 130 couples would be doing the same in three weeks, said a registration office staff.
Younger Chinese these days feared less the consequences of not following tradition, said Kuan Yin Buddhist Temple religious consultant Hooi Meng Hong, 58.
"I see a lot of young people hanging out until late at night. They don?t seem to care much and I?m wondering whether they even know it is the ghost month."
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