It's Ghost Month in Taiwan, a time when people believe the underworld's gates open and spooks roam the world. The traditional thing to do is to appease the evil spirits with tasty snacks such as roast pork or steamed abalone, set out on sidewalks and doorways.

But a new custom is becoming popular around Taiwan: hiring bikini-clad women to dance and sing for the ghosts. The sexy shows are designed to distract the spirits from meddling in human affairs.

A large crowd gathered one recent evening at the Wuhu Market in the island province's second-largest city, the southern port of Kaohsiung. Meat and fish vendors hired women who gyrated their hips to tech music.

The show started after the traditional formalities. Vendors burned incense sticks and bowed before a table loaded with offerings of whole chicken, smoked duck and cans of beer.

The ground was littered with ghost money - brown paper scraps that were burned for the spirits, affectionately called "good brothers." The smoke carries the currency to the spirit world so the ghosts can use it to buy their daily necessities.

"We hope our good brothers enjoy the show and help protect our business," meatball vendor Cheng Yi-lin said after watching the dancers with scores of her neighbors and fellow vendors.

A few marketplaces in the port city offer striptease shows, but vendors at Wuhu have the women wear bikinis because the blaring music sometimes attracts children, she said.

"Marketplaces are killing grounds and are floating with spirits. We did all this to help them seek reincarnation," she said.

Ghost Month falls on the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. This year, it's celebrated from July 29 to August 27.

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