The otherworldly ambience at the recent show in a car park was appropriate -- it's now the middle of the Hungry Ghost Festival in Singapore, a rich, cosmopolitan city with a deeply entrenched Chinese heritage.
Amid skyscrapers and high tech trappings of modernity, superstition persists and comes to the fore in the seventh lunar month, when the gates of the underworld are believed to be open and spirits roam the mortal realm.
Investment decisions grind to a crawl, particulary in the property market, and elaborate altars stacked with food offerings for the spirits are found across the island of five million people.
Fake paper money and effigies representing material wealth such as bungalows and luxury cars are also burnt throughout the month in the belief that they will provide succour for wandering spirits.
"Most Chinese buyers don't like to make purchases or move into homes during the hungry ghost month," said Chua Yang Liang, property consultancy Jones Lang Lasalle's head of research for Southeast Asia and Singapore.
"It's no good for the family or person to make such life-changing decisions during the hungry ghost month."
Taoist high priest Chung Kwang Tong said he asks followers to do more good deeds for the living and the dead during the period.
"Helping extends to even the spiritual world, to give offerings to them and also to try to help them in whatever form we can like performing rituals."
Singaporeans' fear of the dead has also given rise to more unorthodox habits.
Some avoid swimming for fear of being dragged underwater by unseen forces, while others refrain from staying out too late at night to avoid close encounters of the ghostly kind.
In order to entertain the spirits, temples, market stallholders and residents' associations sponsor boisterous roadside shows called getais.
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