Burning Down the House - Heaven's Never Been Better

March 19, 2009 5:53 AM

You can take with you. A colleague of mine showed me this page and asked if I knew what it was all about. I suggested, doll houses. He said you're warm. After a few more guesses I gave up. When he told was it was about, it all clicked. I live in Taiwan and know quite a bit about funeral ceremonies here. I've seen a couple of cars and planes...but never have I seen items like these or these or these. Talk about going out in style! All of this stuff is made out of paper and is set afire! As for the prices....just divide by 34 to get US dollars.
posted by rmmcclay (7 comments total)

So people burn paper representations of the objects and money in a ceremony that transfers them to the dead? Is this link accurate?
posted by Science! at 6:30 AM on March 19, 2009

I live in Taiwan and know quite a bit about funeral ceremonies here.

OK, I don't, and I don't. Could you perhaps provide a little more context? I have no idea what I'm looking at here.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:30 AM on March 19, 2009

The paper stuff is not just for after you die - you can burn it before you die as well. A few years ago I went to my grandmother-in-law's 90th birthday party. Part of the celebrations included burning a lot of paper gold ingots in the street (along with a puppet show, fireworks and Taoist ceremony - all before 9am). Later that same week we were wandering around a village and went into the temple, where we found a few locals spending the afternoon making some offerings. These included a mansion, a plane, a car or two and various consumer items. All out of paper and sticks.

But the funeral stuff is the best - there's a lot of great things in Hong Kong - synthesizers, shirt and tie sets, mobile phones, air-conditioners and, um oxen.

(Apologies for self link to photos - mods pls delete if I broke MeFi law).
posted by awfurby at 6:32 AM on March 19, 2009

More info.
posted by Science! at 6:32 AM on March 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah! I went to a Chinese event that seemed related to a funeral when I was visiting some friends in Thailand. It was an annual celebration of someone's death, and dozens of family members turned out at the cemetery. There were icecream vendors at the entrance; it was so hot! They burned paper money and other things for him, and set a feast out for the spirits. After the spirits had time to get their, um, fill? of the food, us folks with tangible bellies devoured the stuff and went home. It was pretty awesome.
posted by aniola at 8:45 AM on March 19, 2009

These included a mansion, a plane, a car or two and various consumer items. All out of paper and sticks.

*arrives in afterlife to find mountain of worldly goods... represented by paper and sticks*

Arrrrrrgh!
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:05 AM on March 19, 2009

Yep. I don't remember where I came up with this bit, or if it was someone else's, but I used to teach the term "inflation" using the spirit world as a an example. Every year piles and piles of money are burned and added to the monetary system there, most bills with denominations like $888888888888888888. Aside from making accounting a bitch, a stack of 100 of those bills is probably enough to buy you an underworld newspaper.
posted by saysthis at 5:00 PM on March 19, 2009