Wow! Bizarre and interesting find!

These are great!

the info that you’ve received is pretty much it. the idea is that when you are cremated (or buried i guess) and reach the afterlife you have to start all over again. At funerals it’s therefore tradition to burn paper effigies of things, which the deceased person can then possess in the afterlife. traditionally paper cars, a maid, a house and a LOT (and i mean, a LOT) of paper money is burnt; i don’t know about china, because my family is malaysian-chinese, but these funereal burnings take place very publicly, everyone is expected to go, and watch & pray, etc. your boxes are so up-to-date - i’d never have thought of it!

oh, and i laughed out loud when i saw that toothpaste - in malaysia it’s called Darlie and it’s super-super strong mint flavour. EVERYONE uses it.

Thanks Anushka!

I think even after the funeral people go every once in awhile to do it to make sure their loved ones are still stocked up with supplies and luxury goods. I remember as a small child I was really amazed by the paper money cos it was covered in gold and silver leaf.

I remember when I first saw all the pretty funereal paper goods at the Chinese supermarket as a kid and I wanted to buy some sheets because I thought they were pretty and I thought maybe I could use them for a craft project or something. My mum freaked out a little because it’s for the dead, it’s not for playing with, it’s bad luck, etc., and she made me put it all back. It’s been a while since I looked at the stuff (that bad luck thing really stuck with me, I guess), but when I was younger, there wasn’t such a huge variety of paper luxury goods. It was just the pretty paper and fake money (which usually said it was from the Hell Bank). There’s a little more info under the wiki entry for joss paper, the most interesting tidbit being this: “In 2006, China’s deputy minister for civil affairs, Dou Yupei, said he intended to ban at least the more extreme forms of joss paper, such as MP3 players, planes, boats and even paper condoms, paper prostitutes and Viagra.” They’ve certainly come a long way since the pretty sheets of paper with the gold and silver foil on them!

Oh I didn’t know that such little details had been taken care of:-). In my grandpa’s funeral, we burned him a very elaborate house with many many rooms and spacious courtyards. There wer also maids, and very luxurious cars. I think now we can even order LV bags or something like that (This I am not sure of, just my guess:-)