Stories of the mythological figure Chung K'uei catching ghosts are among China's most famous folk tales. To coincide with festival, this Directorate has chosen to issue a set of two stamps based on ancient paintings depicting Chunq K'uei from the National Palace Museum collection. Scheduled to be released on May 15, 1998, the stamps will have face values of NT $5.00 and NT$20.00 respectively. The former, taken from Song-dynasty Kung Kai's work Chung K'uei Moving, shows Chung K'uei, as the king of ghosts making ghosts work for him. The latter, from the Minq-dynasty work An Auspicious Occasion, shows a drunken Chung K'uei dancing beside a small ghost who is carrying a large jar of liquor. The character Chung K'uei has his roots in talismans used by the Chou-dynasty court to ward off evil spirits that were called chung-kuei. During the South and North Dynasties, the court promoted the use of chung-kuei among the people. The folk belief in a man named Chung K'uei who became a deity after he died began in the Tang-dynasty. In the more than one thousand years since, Chung K'uei has become very popular. With the widely held view of him as the greatest ghost buster of all--capable of vanquishing demons and monsters and eating qhosts--painters, novelists and dramatists haveall made him the focus of their works. As the end of the year approached and during the dragon boat festival, each and every household used to put up his portraits to ward off evil and bring good fortune.