A number of bundles of joss paper were piled on a cart on the wayside

A wagon parked on the side of the road was haphazardly piled with bundles of yellow paper. They are called joss paper, and in Chinese culture they are burned during rituals for the dead or when praying to demon gods. It is believed to reach the underworld as smoke. If you visit a temple in Taiwan, you will often see the sight of the joss paper being dedicated and disappearing into the sky in the form of smoke. It is that common.

On the side of the yellow bundle was the Chinese character for “blessings” painted in red. It was probably a wish for the deceased person who was to use it to be happy. There are times when we are troubled by the lack of money, but not often by the presence of money - unfortunately, this reality is not likely to change in the afterlife. Given this, it is not a very happy story for me, as I have no luck with money.

At least the saving grace is that the money available in the afterlife is of a different kind than the currency of this world. At the very least, I would like to believe that the wealth I have in this world will not be brought directly into the afterlife. Still, I wondered what the deceased would be thinking at that moment when he or she was smoking with the money.

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