Offerings and feeding the unseen
Joss paper and the Hungry Ghost offering
The burning of paper money and goods for the dead, and the street offerings of the seventh lunar month.
Presented by ClearTrust Customs described as customs, free to read.
Joss paper is paper made to look like money, gold and silver ingots or goods, burned in Chinese communities as a gift for the dead and the gods. Believers hold that what is burned reaches the other world, where it can be spent. The practice is most visible at funerals, at Qingming in spring and in the seventh lunar month.
This is an outline of a custom, said as belief and practice. It is not instruction, it does not say that the rite works, and it is not medical advice.
What goes into it
- Joss paperOfferingPaper money and ingots.
- Paper goodsOfferingHouses, clothes and phones made of paper.
- Food and fruitOfferingSet out on a table for the guests.
- IncenseOfferingLit and held in both hands.
- BurnerToolA metal container for the fire.
- Street altarSpaceA table set outside the door.
- Offering
- Tool
- Space
Each part has an equal wedge. The ring shows what goes into the rite, not how much. Colour is the part's role.
The steps, drawn
Each drawing shows the kind of act in that step. Details differ from place to place, family to family and practitioner to practitioner.
Step 1: Gather Set a table of food and fruit outside the door. Step 2: Light Light incense and say the name of the one being remembered. Step 3: Speak Invite the unseen guests to eat and take what is offered. Step 4: Offer Burn the paper in a metal burner. Step 5: Rest Wait while the incense burns down. Step 6: Close Clear the table and share the food among the living.
The Ghost Festival
The seventh lunar month is called the ghost month, and its fifteenth day is the Ghost Festival, a feast of the Taoist and Buddhist calendars. People believe that the gates of the underworld open and that ghosts, including those without descendants, walk among the living. Families and neighbourhoods set out food, burn joss paper and lay out offerings in the street, in Singapore and Malaysia often with open-air operas and songs called getai, and an empty seat at the front is kept for unseen guests.
Change and concern
The paper may be formed as houses, cars and phones, and is a means to care for relatives in the next world. Burning adds to smoke and to air pollution, so authorities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have asked for fewer or smaller burns and set out designated burners. Scholars see the rite as a way of keeping up kin duty beyond death and of caring for the forgotten dead.
What it is for
- Care for dead relatives
- Appease unattended ghosts
Who does it
Related entries
Also part of it, and being written: Chinese ancestral veneration (The wider custom.).
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Sources and further reading
Original text and drawings by the EveryJaadu desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Closed or sacred detail is left out. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Ghost Festival: Chong Fat, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Joss paper: Vmenkov, CC BY-SA 3.0, source