Yesterday was a big ghost money-burning day, as it…
Yesterday was a big ghost money-burning day, as it’s the middle of Ghost Month, when the spirits are supposedly the most free to roam around in search of potato chips, fruit drinks and a comfortable sofa. Clouds of noxious smoke rose from the streets as the Taiwanese people once again sent out a big “Fuck You!” to their descendants in favor of appeasing the ghosts of their ancestors. It’s been said that the dead have it better than the living here, mostly in reference to the prime real estate given over to cemetaries on this crowded island. But it goes for this honored tradition of releasing toxic carginogens imprinted on whole forests of dead trees into the air by the boatload as well.
In a sign that it’s not just neurotic westerners noticing the harmful effects of this tradition, the government took a break from its normally idiotic campaign of trying to get people to have more babies, in an attempt to wean the automatrons off their dangerous habit by introducing online “ghost money burning” sites and getting people to do it at centralized locations rather than all over the place, but it’s not having much of an effect. Why? Because burning ghost money is easy to do, and it guarantees a full year of no personal responsibility. Imagine, a whole year of driving around without a care in the world, cutting corners on mountain roads with no helmet, eating whatever you like at the night market with intestinal impunity, and in general living a risk-free life (excepting the occasional seeing a foreigner on the street, Sunlight and other risks)! How can anyone compete with such a promise? In a country where personal convenience of having a scooter that belches out smoke outweighs any far-off futuristic dream of this mythical so-called “clean air” that one sees in other countries on HBO…well, nobody.
I realize that the lack of security resulting from indifferent and arbitrary government over the centuries makes it only natural that people turn instead to religion and the obseqious fawning/public indifference that is all that remains of the Confucian ideal for a sense of stability in their lives, but every time I pass the scene of mass ghost money burning, be it in front of someone’s house or a major department store run by a cooperation that spouts literature about all the good they’re doing for Taiwan, I wonder if the people there are including better air quality or freedom from pollution-related illnesses in their prayers. I’d ask, but for one thing, my brain would explode if I was right, and for another, it would do about as much good as complaining about it on a blog somewhere.
(The poster above was inspired by this)
we’ve had a continuous string of “orange” days here – the combination of heat and trapped polution causing official alerts warning the elderly and those with repiratory problems to stay inside.
’cause the more they stay home, the lest we have to think about them and their breathing needs. right?
Comment by Zhara — August 9, 2006 @ 4:24 pm
I don’t really think ghost money-burning is religious, but it has something to do with “business”. It’s just like trading. Once people know they can’t ask for safety, health and wealth by giving money to the invisible, they may stop being so superstitious. It takes time and I believe people will change. 🙂
Btw, I am curious about how your brownie looked like. Did you take photos of it?
Comment by Daniel — August 9, 2006 @ 4:24 pm
Once people stop being taught to do it, they’ll stop doing it, hopefully. The problem, as usual, is education, or lack of it.
The brownies were more like blackies, actually. Not terribly photogenic.
Comment by TC — August 9, 2006 @ 4:27 pm
A few years back, I was working at a school that had a kindergarten in the basement. On the day that the gates of hell were at their widest, the Taiwanese staff went about setting a small inferno at the entrance of the kindergarten. Well, the smoke decided it wasn’t going to rise but move down the stairs to the kindergarten. Of course there were no smoke detectors but the foreign teachers (and some Taiwanese staff, I guess) could see and smell the smoke. EMERGENCY! Everyone on the floor! Get to the stairs. We must get the kids out. Oh, no. The fire seems to be coming from the stairwell. We must risk it! They got everyone out. The kids were crying. The teachers were in a panic and the money burners were looking at all the kids and the teachers like they were some kind of retards. Damn, I love this place!
Comment by Anonymous — August 11, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
Hmmm, interesting commments from anonymous. I relate to his or her perspective. Conformity is darn rampant in the west, including the free-wheeling city of Montreal where I come from. But go to Taiwan, where there is this vast patina of friendliness, and if you act awestruck at the lack off common sense (what the devil is the smoke doing in the stairwell) and the locals stare at you like you are an idiot. Hmm. Everywhere. Well, it is Advanced Aapitalism, after all. And this capitalism is even more advanced in places like Dubai, London, Taiwan, China, Japan, than in even the biggest cities in Canada.
A bit sobering, I’m afraid. I think I might just hide out with the tribes in Papua New Guinea until Advanced Capitalism reaches there. By then, it will be too let. The earth’s human population will be devastated by heat waves, typhoons, monsoons, etc. I guess it’s better than being killed by an idiotic nuclear war. At least the non-human animals will survive. After all, they don’t deserve to disappear like maybe we do!
And it is true that death is celebrated more than life here. But I don’t think it has anything to do with being simply tradition. I think it has more to do with the fact that the rituals that celebrate life have been fairly well eradicated here and many other places. Dionysean (excuse my spelling) traditions for instance. Such traditions don’t easily fit into the moulds of Advanced Capitalism.
Comment by Thoth Harris — August 12, 2006 @ 7:11 am