According to the Chinese custom, the first day of the tenth lunar month is the Ancestors' Sacrifice Festival.
In order to show their loyalty and respect, since ancient times people have been holding ceremonies to offer sacrifices, usually grains, to their ancestors after harvest. Sacrificial ceremonies may be held at home or in front of tombs. Such a custom is widely accepted both in the north and in the south. Up to now, it is still practiced in many parts south of the Yangtze River.
As the first day of the tenth lunar month is the very beginning of winter when the weather begins to become cold, paper clothes are among the most important necessities together with food, paper money and candles on sacrifical ceremonies. They are afraid that their ancestors do not have enough clothes. On the ceremony, they burn paper clothes to send them to their beloved ones. In this case, the Ancestors' Sacrifice Festival is also known as the "Clothes-burning Festival".
As time goes by, some changes have taken place to the clothes-burning custom. People do not burn clothes any more. Instead, they burn "packages". Packages are envelope-like paper bags containing paper money with the ancestors' names and addresses. They burn such packages to send money to their ancestors, because they believe that their ancestors can buy clothes and other things with the money as the living people do.
There is a very interesting story pertinent to the Ancestors Sacrifice Festival:
Paper sold so well when it had been invented by the great inventor Cai Lun that his sister-in-law Hui Liang urged his husband Cai Mo, Cai Lun's brother, to learn the skill of paper making . Having learnt the skill, Cai Mo came back and set up a paper-making factory. However, the paper he made did not sell well owing to the poor quality. The couple were very worried. In order to get out of the trouble, Hui Liang thought of an idea.
She pretended to have died from sudden illness at one midnight. The sad husband cried over her coffin, burning paper. "I was asked to learn the skill of paper making. I didn't learn it well and couln't make paper of fine quality. It is I that make you ill. I will burn all these malicious paper into ashes to ease my rage." Saying these words, he burned paper piles after piles. After a while, a voice came from the coffin. "Open the door! I'm home!" It was Hui Liang's voice. People at present were all frightened. She jumped out of the coffin, saying, "People in the underworld trade with paper as we do with money. Had my husband not burnt paper, they would not have sent me back."
Repeating the words for several times, Hui Liang explained what had happened to her to the frightened people. "Don't be frightened. I am a human being. Just now when I was in the underworld, the King of Hell made me suffer a lot. Indeed as the saying goes, money can make the devil go. I gave all my money my husband sent to me to the officials in charge, so he let me go and sent me back."
" But, but I didn't send you any money!" Cai Mo pretended to be confused.
"No, you did. The paper you burned is money in the underworld."
Hearing this, the husband picked up more paper and burned them for their parents.
People at present all believed that Hui Liang's coming back to life should be attributed to her husband's paper burning. They went to the couple's factory to buy paper, which the wife was generous enough to give them free of charge. News was soon spread far and wide. People near and far all swarmed to buy paper and burn them for the benefit of their ancestors. Within two days, all the paper kept long in stock was sold out. As Hui Liang came back to life on the first day of the tenth lunar month, people afterwards went to tombs and burned paper in memory of their ancestors on that very day.
In some places, special ceremonies are held to offer sacrifices to the God of Ox on the same day. The custom can be traced back to the State of Qin during the Spring and Autumn Period (770B.C.-476 B.C.). One day when Emperor Wengong ordered to cut a catalpa, the tree turned into an ox.