Death is no barrier to Chinese ancestors receiving the latest
gadgets, with paper iPads, laptops and LCD TVs burned at gravesides across Asia to
mark the Ching Ming festival this week.
Paper money, clothes, luxury cars and handbags have long been
standard items for the Chinese festival, also known as
grave-sweeping day, when replica offerings are burnt for the dead
to use in the afterlife.
The latest tech hardware joined the list of items which went up
in smoke this year, with many shops selling the paper offerings
saying they could not meet demand for replica iPads.
"These are the bestsellers this year," said Chan, a shop owner
in Hong Kong's busy Causeway Bay district, pointing at the black
iPads that go for HK$25 ($3.2) each.
"They are the latest technology. Old and young customers love
them because they are the newest models," said Chan, whose shop
sells a range of paper offerings, including 42-inch LCD TVs for
HK$60.
Another shop owner said high-tech items including iPads,
iPhones, laptops and LCD TVs were sold out despite placing
additional orders for the paper products.
"People have been buying like crazy, it's all sold-out," said
the shop owner who gave her name as Yuen.
Demand was also strong in China and Taiwan for similar
items.
"My father was a college professor. He was open-minded and
accepted new things easily," Wuhan resident Hu Yuqin, who spent 876
yuan ($135) on a paper iPad and iPhone 4, told Chinese state
media.
"I think the Apple products would make him happy," said Hu.
"By burning the offerings, the family want to compensate what
they have not done for their beloved ones in the human world," Yean
Han, director of Taiwanese shop, Spectacular Kind of Elysium
Accessories, told AFP.
The company, based in northern New Taipei City, sells offerings
from the mundane, such as paper cosmetics and sushi bars, to the
bizarre -- a Japanese-style hot spring resort which carries a price
tag of Tw$168,000 ($5,695).
Aside from paper gadgets, people can also buy replicas of pet
food and chew toys for their dead pets, according to Hong Kong's
South China Morning Post.
In Singapore, 47-year-old Steven Foo ordered a paper private jet
and other goods for his late mother.
"My mother loved travelling so I got her a private Boeing jet to
travel around the world," Foo told AFP.
"I also got her a big bungalow, nice clothing, nice shoes, nice
bags, nice sunglasses. When she was alive, she loved to travel and
big houses."
In multiracial Malaysia, where a quarter
of its 28 million are ethnic Chinese, the festival was also
observed with paper offerings including iPads, diamond rings,
credit cards and Mercedes-Benz cars complete with drivers.
"The Chinese believe this Confucian rite will make our dead
ancestors guard us against evil forces and keep bad luck away,"
said George Choo, who visited the graves of his parents just
outside the capital Kuala Lumpur.
He was however sceptical about offering high-tech items.
"iPad is a modern gadget that came after
they died. I just wonder who is going to teach them how to use it,"
said Choo.
Singaporean Robert Han said his family opted to stick to the
traditional offerings of clothes and money for his late father.
"For us, we stuck to tradition and gave the traditional things
like money, lots of money for them to use (in the afterworld)," he
told AFP.
-- Yahoo!