As the dry-ice machine emitted a gust of mist, two female singers in glittering, form-fitting dresses belted out a line from an old Hokkien song atop a makeshift stage.

Wreathed by smoke, they wove in and out of view as they performed a song and dance routine in front of a 400-strong audience under the shadow of high-rise public flats just 10 minutes’ drive from Singapore’s banking district.

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, particularly 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.”

Data provided by Jones Lang LaSalle showed a dive in private residential sales during the hungry ghost festivals in August 2008 and 2009 compared to July.

“I think the social taboo still carries on,” Chua said.

The festival, lasting from August 10 to September 7 this year, also impacts marriage rates, which plummet because ethnic Chinese, who comprise 74 percent of the local population, believe it is an inauspicious 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.

“For this year, I’m doing getais every day, that means 29 days non-stop,” said Aaron Tan, director of Lex(s) Entertainment, which specializes in setting up such shows.

“The highest number of getais I have in a single night is six shows,” he said.

Featuring local as well as regional talents, getais — which means “singing stages” in Mandarin — are held with dinner banquets and auction sessions for household goods and consumables like liquor to commemorate the festival.

The fiercest bidding battles are usually fought over religious items such as gold-plated deity statues and “black gold” — a lump of charcoal with gold-plated casing — said to bring prosperity and wealth to the owner.

Bids for “black gold” have exceeded 100,000 Singapore dollars (73,000 US) in the past, said Tony Chan, a member of a residents’ group which organises banquets and auctions.