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In Case It Rains In Heaven

Kurt Tong

Tra­di­tion­ally, many Chinese believe that when a per­son dies, he leaves with no earthly pro­ces­sions and it’s up to their des­cend­ants to provide for them in their after­life until their reincarnation.

Joss paper, made from coarse bam­boo paper is burnt as offer­ings for the dead. Depend­ing on the region Joss paper is dec­or­ated with seals, stamps, sil­ver or gold paint. These are often fol­ded into the shape of gold or sil­ver ingots. Plain Joss paper is offered to newly deceased spir­its of the unknown. Sil­ver is given to ances­tral spir­its as well as spir­its of local deit­ies. Gold spirit money is given gods such as the Jade Emperor.

Some believe that money will enable their ancest­ors to live lav­ishly in the after­life. Oth­ers believe that the money is used to bribe the guards and the Black judge of the after­life in order to escape early. More contemporary/westernizes vari­et­ies of Joss paper include Hall Bank Notes and paper credit cards.

In the last 50 years more and more elab­or­ate items are made out of paper as offer­ings for the dead. Cars, ser­vants and houses were com­mon sights at funer­als. As consumer’s cul­ture takes over China. Joss products have become more out­rageous. while this prac­tice is offi­cially banned in China, it has been tolerated.

Some see the offer­ings as a com­pens­a­tions for what a per­son never had dur­ing his life­time, many con­sidered the item as a reflec­tion of the val­ues of the liv­ing of our society.

In 2006 it was repor­ted that paper pros­ti­tutes, Via­gra, con­doms, ecstasy and gambling equip­ments were found on sale out­side of cemeter­ies. This lead to a crack down of the more extreme products.

The images in this pro­ject are some of the products cur­rently avail­able to burn for the dead.