The Last Day of Ghost Month: Taboos of the 29th and the Gate of Ghosts

Today Is the Last Day of Ghost Month

The 29th day of the seventh lunar month, September 10 on the Gregorian calendar, the last day of the seventh month of the Bingwu year — this year the seventh month is a short month, only twenty-nine days. By folk tradition, the moment the zi hour (23:00) arrives tonight, the "Gate of Ghosts" (guimen guan) closes; tomorrow, the first day of the eighth month, ghost month is properly over.

In Taiwan's Google trending searches over the past 24 hours, the search heat for the word 禁忌 (taboos) rose by 1,000%. Every year as ghost month winds down, what people are really asking is the same thing: what is best not to do on these days.

Where the Idea of the "Gate of Ghosts" Comes From

The notion of the ghost gate is a product of folk custom mixed with Daoism and Buddhism: Daoism takes the fifteenth day of the seventh month as the Zhongyuan Festival, when the Earthly Official pardons sins; Buddhism marks the same day as the Ullambana Festival, telling the story of Mulian saving his mother. Folk tradition counts the whole seventh month as "ghost month," with the first day "opening the gate of the earth" and the last day of the month "closing the gate of ghosts." The two ends of 2026 are August 13 (the first day of the seventh month) and September 10 (the twenty-ninth day of the seventh month) on the Gregorian calendar; some accounts also count the moment of opening as the zi hour of the previous night.

A List of Folk Taboos in Circulation

The ones that spread the widest are, at bottom, all variations on "don't stay outdoors late at night":

• Don't roam at night, don't go near the water: folk custom says "avoid playing in water"; the seventh lunar month falls right at the end of summer, when the air is heavy with dampness, and it is not really a season fit for going into the water
• Don't pat people on the shoulder, don't whistle, don't call out names at night: folk belief holds that there is fire on the shoulders and that whistling draws things in — in the end, it means don't disturb others in the night
• Don't pick up money on the roadside, don't eat offerings left by the road: money on the ground and offerings by the road are both treated as "someone else's things"
• Don't hang clothes out at night, don't walk pressed against the wall: one account says damp clothes against the body draw the yin, another that it is cold and dark beside the wall
• Don't break ground, don't marry, don't move house: these were already checked strictly in traditional date selection, and are all the more discouraged during ghost month

Looking at These "Taboos" From Another Angle

Spread these items out and you find that they almost all point to the same thing: don't stay outside alone late at night, don't touch things of unknown origin, don't hold big events on these days. The seventh month is the month when the summer heat is ending and the weather turns restless; the ancients had no weather warnings, so they wrote their sense of risk into taboos. Put to today, its modern version might be no more than a single line: "send me a message when you're heading back late."

If You Really Want to Hold a Big Event, Check the Almanac

If you are preparing to move into a home, set up a bed, or sign a contract on these days, rather than listening to what people say, it is better to leaf through the almanac: which day is favorable and which is not is written out clearly. The almanac date-selection feature on this site lists the daily do's and don'ts and usable recommendations for a period ahead, so that "picking a day" can be very concrete.

This article gathers folk customs and calendar culture, and makes no judgment of fortune or misfortune.