Last Saturday, I discovered something strange in the yard
under my flat – hell-money from Hellbank.
At first, I thought this might be some kind of political
spoof; a strange printed comment on governmental corruption. But as I twisted the note over in my hand, I
realised its true meaning. It’s money
that Chinese people burn for the dead, so that they can use it in the
afterlife. And the reason it was in my
yard just at this time of year was because China has recently celebrated 清明节 (Qingming Jie).
清明节 (sometimes translated as
Clear Bright Festival) is when people go to visit the graves of their ancestors
to pay their respects. This means
sweeping their tombs – hence the other common English name for this festival,
Tomb-Sweeping Day. Burning paper money
(“hell money” as the translation would have it) is another part of the
ritual.
Ideally, people are able to travel all the way to their
ancestors’ graves, but sometimes that is not possible, so they burn offerings
in the town where they live. Last week
in Beijing, I saw small groups of people building fires near main roads for
this very purpose. A local Beijing
taxi-driver (90% of what I know about China I learnt from taxi-drivers) told me that the fires always need to be next to a crossroads,
although he could not explain why. Other
Chinese friends had never heard the thing about the crossroads, so it may only
be a Beijing custom.
I still have other questions about the money. What is the exchange rate between hell-money
and earth-money? What can I buy in the
afterlife with 50 RMB? What kind of
shops do they have there? But I feel
embarrassed about asking these questions.
So instead, I will burn the money, and hope it reaches its rightful
owner, wherever he or she may be.
