China celebrates the Ghost Festival — Zhongyuanjie

This is one of the most important days in the folk calendar. In the seventh lunar month, the gates of the afterlife open, and the souls of the deceased return to the living. Families welcome them, offer food, and send them back. People burn paper money, clothes, and even entire paper "houses" to provide their ancestors with everything they need in the afterlife. In the city of Kaili (Guizhou Province), the festival is celebrated especially grandly. Here, in the autonomous region of the Miao and Dong peoples, the tradition has been very well preserved.