Juba, in reply to your question on the previous page - I don’t know mate. As soon as I commented the the kid was pretty heavy (stupid me, I thought the Chinese love hearing that their kid is well fed), the mother crapped herself, I thought she whack me with the China Post!! Na not that serious. I assured the mother that like a lot of Chinese people, as soon as the waiguoren mouth opens, it’s assumed english’ll come out. That being said, he probably wouldn’t have understood a word I said! (btw, the baby is only 3 months old). Anyway, I think ‘pung’ rather than ‘zhong’ is more appropriate. The Chinese guy I was talking too didn’t know this rule either, so I had a bit of support.
[quote]why can’t people burn virtual money instead? It’s not like your modern ghost is used to handling that much cash anyway.
Do it online, or better, set up a standing order so your ghosts can budget around a reliable, steady income.[/quote]
Good idea! In fact last year I remember reading about virtual cemeteries for duitful sons and daughters who opted for a holiday, rather than brave the traffic of tomb sweeping day, to pay their respects to the deceased… Perhaps virtual worship could become the Hallmark of Asia 
It is up to the Taiwanese people here to decide and legislate, and they will do as they see fit. No? This is their country, their culture, and these are their gods, their traditions.
Change even one little thing about this place and you will not be here anymore. You will be back in your home country. Is that what you want Taiwan to be, the best of everything you have ever known and none of this diabolical pagan silliness? Then you would not have come here in the first place. Can’t have it both ways.
But let’s dream, yes!
If Taiwan doesn’t want foreigners to have opinions, then it can do without our taxes, too.
Juba, you have a distinct lack of any tell-tale bloodstains anywhere on your clothing.
Is it really any worse than Guy Fawkes night back in the UK, where after an evening of bonfires and fireworks displays it is not uncommon to not be able to even see where you are going.
No one complains about that though…
The problem with those traditions is that they might be “evolving”. What is that battle called they are holding in Tainan once a year? Oh, sorry, it was something religious. Yes, I remember having seen something like a shrine being carried. Though I’m not sure, due to all the fire crackers, explosions, noise… And usually, I don’t see people going to religious ceremonies in “heavy armor” including a helmet. Is that shrine still of any importance? What if they carry something else, like the box with my new fridge? Would anyone notice? Or is the most important thing now perhaps the war, unleashed for a short time? What did that ceremony look like about 30 years ago?
I accept religious traditions, but this acceptance comes to a sudden stop when some dud starts throwing fire crackers out of a car window, right among the two-wheelers. Or at a newly opened shop the fire crackers need to be thrown right into the traffic - how else would they get attention? Tradition is a nice thing - as long as it doesn’t hurt people. (Btw, because Christmas was mentioned before: I haven’t heard of christmas trees attacking innocent bypassers - not even from Monty Python. So, maybe we can keep it…)
And this is not “a foreigner thing”, it appears that also Taiwanese do not really “enjoy” sudden explosions beside their scooter. But it will probably take a (though one will not be enough) fatal accident to change something…
PS: A “ghost (or “spiritual”) credit card” sounds good to me…
I was talking to some Taiwanese friends about superstitions related to exams the other day. Said to them that Mum had always told me to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast on the day of the test, because eggs were “brain food”. My friends looked at me with surprise: turns out that eggs would be the last thing they’d eat due to their shape (“0” is too close to “zero”).
Complaining about a little ghost money burning. …
Try Halloween in Dublin, Beirut in the 80’s was a safer place.
We used to build bonfires 20 feet high and have small arsenals of fireworks.
About Formosa’s comment. Taiwanese were foreigners when they first arrived in Taiwan. They forced their culture on the indigineous peoples. If you study history you will know Taiwan had a minimal Chinese presence until about 250 years ago. Westerners controlled it for large periods first. Perhaps the Dutch should reclaim their heritage?
After all it was westerners who imported the Fujianese originally to work on the farms and logging industry. The Fuijianese drove the Hakkas to the hills, which further drove the aboriginals to the mountains.
The Japanese came in the 1890’s and forced everybody to speak Japanese. The only people who put up a fight were the aboriginals and they got massacred for it (makes you think about what would really happen if China came knocking). Taiwan was only a few decades away from thinking of itself as Japanese. After World War II mainlanders came and forced their version of China on the locals.
Countries are constantly being changed and added to by foreigners in their midst. This is the normal state of affairs. Chinese have and never will dominate ‘world culture’ to a degree that western does because they don’t really accept foreigners can get into their culture and have any right to try and change things. By not truly accepting foreigners they recognise their culture has not too much to offer to different types of people. It’s why people don’t bother explaining to me the reasons , just say it’s an ancient Chinese tradition (well I guess a lot of them don’t know).
They don’t really believe in most of the stuff themselves.
Why do Chinese often aspire to western things but not the other way round?
What Asian country accepts refugees? Now Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have significant resources to sponsor refugees but they are not doing it (except for a few TIbetans recently) . Simply put normal thinking is being Taiwanese is also being Chinese and that’s that. But it might not always be the way!
That’s funny about exam superstitions
I heard a story of once of some guy who used to see opened soda bottles outside the neighbourhood store beside a university. When he inquired why people were just leaving them there he found out a girl who used to fail a lot of exams had decided to get a can of soda one morning at the start of a new batch. What do you know, she passed all the exams! Turns out other people heard this story and now it’s a superstitious tradition for all her classmates to get sodas and leave them outside the shop in the morning!
Another weird thing happened to me a few months ago
I never understood. I went to make a phone call at a smart card phone outside a 7-11. Scattered around the phone, on top and on the ground were a multitude of cards. Me being the crafty guy that I am I tried one. It worked. So did all the others. They only had the price of one phone call each extracted from them. There were about 15 different cards lying around worth about 2000 NT. I scooped em all up and went home with them! Later I thought to myself that was mighty weird and I’ve never been able to figure it out. Perhaps it was someone making ‘superstitious calls’ to their ancestors or sacrificing phone cards. Weird. Anybody have any suggestions?
Lastly a few months ago a neighbouring company in our office block decided to do their regular worship the business God burn money stuff. Only this time they did it in the corridor! I got out of the elevator on our floor and there were ashes flying everywhere and the boss and his minions were trying to extinguish the fire while trying to save as much face as possible. I laughed so hard to myself. It was the stupidest thing I ever saw. Later I got pretty annoyed cos they could have burned us all up by their stupidity and laziness (most people do it in the open air area, these people did outside their reception door!)
Vincent,
Read that in Shanghai they ARE starting a move to ban motorcycles
from the downtown section of Shanghai. If motorcylists now ride on
the backroads, it is ok, but by 2005, they hope to have a complete
ban in place.
I do not think that would happen here as too many people are hooked
on the convenience of their scooters and cars. But it sure would be
alot healthier. And for those of us who really like to use bicycles, but
for one reason or another hesitate (like after being run off the road
by a truck and being seriously injured or having people open car
doors quickly without looking into their side mirrors) to do so, this
would be great. But in order to do that, people would have to make
job adjustments, etc. I do not really think that the Taiwanese people
I have met for the most part would be willing to make these kinds of
changes (sacrifices in their books). But if people are willing to do
this, I would support them 100% - even though now it is painful to
ride a bike.
I remember reading in the paper that the government was encouraging people to burn specially made ghost credit cards instead of huge wads of ghost money.
Obviously it didnt take off. People won’t stop the burning of ghost money unless you ban them.
Perhaps it could be banned in all public places except temples. People would then have to take a trip to a temple to do their burning thing.
i remember that too spack, it just never took off.
if there’s one thing i hate about taipei, it’s burning stacks of dyed paper creating horrible chemical laden smoke with dangerous bins of red hot ashes just left there. reasonably, it should be banned in any urban area.
who said you couldn’t change this without turning taiwan western? ridiculous. undeserving of further comment.
but it is a spiritual exercise, rooted in tradition. however not everyone in taipei believes in this custom. should their right to clean air and a safe environment be sacrificed in the cause of religious freedom? i’m an atheist and not a pig–THANK YOU JEEPERS–and i believe in full religious freedom–I’ll thank you too to note that what makes communists pigs is their suppression of these rights. but you can’t scream fire in a crowded theater.
the comparisons to combustion engines are interesting. not everyone wants to use one, but we all have to breathe the smoke. they can be immediately dangerous as well, like if you get hit by one. certainly the damage they cause to the atmosphere makes money burning look like a fart in the wind. but if we continued on this line of logic we would just have to accept all pollution. perhaps we just have to fight our battles where we can.
in any event banning it would make the recent changes to garbage collection look like nothing. i wish people could get the idea that you could just leave the money on the table with the food. after all you don’t have to burn the food for the ghosts/ancestors to partake. why do you have to burn the money. a large-scale education campaign should be started to promote this idea, ha ha ha.
hopefully some politician will have the guts to ban it someday. recent trends in taipei would suggest that its not impossible.
once my wife got the idea in her head that she was being tormented by a ghost, and she decided to burn some paper money on the floor outside out front door, leaving a nice indelible black stain there. we moved soon after 
Sure, burning ghost money creates a little smoke, but it doesn’t create nearly the same environmental damage as a wacky cultural habit people have back in my country.
Every year for the entire month of December everyone strings millions of lights around their houses, trees, rooftops and commercial buildings all across the country as part of a ridiculous superstition concerning some guy who was killed and came back to life, or some fat guy in a red suit who lives at the north pole, or just to rev up the economy depending on how you want to justify the superstition, resulting in a staggering use of electricity for no practical purpose, burning prodigious amounts of fossil fuels, increasing our reliance on Saddam Hussein and hastening global warming.
If you really want to save our planet, forget about the little piles of ghost money and go after the x’mas lights. That’s a far bigger problem.
Huh? Why not? Is it one of those inauspicious homophones?[/quote]
Well, being heavy is a sign of good health and saying that is like setting him up for getting sick. With my son when he was born his Grandmother wouldn’t even allow people to say he was cute. Man, it’s like you’re not allowed to say anything positive. 
When my folks passed away and I wasn’t able to make it back home for the funeral, I set up a small shrine to them and held a Chinese-style ceremony, including burning some paper money. It helped a lot.
Omni, excellent post. Cheers!!
Burning money wouldn’t be so bad if it was a couple of times a year and people just burned a couple of wads. The problem is it seems to be done about twice a month and people burn way too much of the stuff.
Some of the worst offenders are businesses. I once had difficulty getting into a supermarket because the staff were enthusiastically burning great stacks of ghost money at the entrance. It was quite windy and thick smoke and smouldering ghost money were blowing all over the place.
It is true that other activities produce much more pollution than burning ghost money but that does not mean measures should not be taken to limit how much ghost money people burn on a regular basis.
The girls at my local bakery were outside the store, banking up the big money fire… on a windy day, upwind of about 20 parked motorcycles…
Bought my croissant somewhere else that day 
Are you serious about this? I would understand if someone mentiones candles as a kind of dangerous decoration. I remember them being used on the tree when it still was much taller than me. While real candles provide more “atmosphere”, I think it is good they are replaced by candle-shaped lightbulbs now - so Christmas has done its share for a safer environment.
Yes, “western” cities become quite bright before Christmas - but thats only during a limited time and you can’t tell for sure where the electric power comes from. But if you don’t like those lights, how about all the advertisements, flashlights etc consuming energy 24/7? I would take them out first…
Gosh, dl7und, you’d be ruining my Christmas!
We’ve always had and still have (as well as my whole family whether they live in Singapore, Croatia or all over Germany) REAL candles on the Christmas tree. And it’s never been a safety issues, with none of us kids (nor with fascinated cats). But it does create the right atmosphere. Christmas without real candles just isn’t Christmas.
I don’t think electric lights are necessary for safety. Those guys who have safety problems with real christmas candles probably would have them with with any kind of candles.
Sorry, seem to get OT with most of my posts these days.
I’ll withdraw now :?
Iris