Yesterday was 清明节 (which means tomb-sweeping day). On this day, thousands of Chinese will flocked to either temples or cemeteries to pay respect to their love ones. They would bring along food, fruits, incense paper, paper money and other traditional offerings like paper houses, cars and clothes. These items will be offered through fire.

On this day, I accompanied my parents to 光明山 temple to pay respect to my late grandfather and uncle.

While waiting for our relatives to arrive, I saw a young family of 4 which consist of the father, the mother, a daughter and a son. An ordinary family, nothing to create a hoo-ha about.

But in the arms of this young boy was a black paper car( it’s a 6-8 seater sports utility vehicle! ). Immediately it reminds me of an interesting news article and I discussed with my father.

This news article is saying that, nowadays the traditional offerings are getting more creative. In the past, the usual offerings are paper money, houses, cars and clothes. But nowadays, some offerings are really out of the box! Imagine having paper PS3, paper ipods, paper Wii and even paper machine guns! And I mean paper replica of real machine guns not toy guns!

I really wondered why “they” need machine guns! I thought it’s already all peaceful up there!

My father added: “Why not they create a paper Visa card then it will replace all the huge stacks of incense money?”. Since Visa’s slogan is “All it takes.” I laughed, of course.

Now back to the young boy with the paper car. With no disrespect to the boy, my mind asked internally: ” Did he bring along a piece of paper car license as well?”

Just some interesting thoughts to share with friends, with no due disrespect to the traditional festival, as I believed traditional customs also evolves through times, likewise is the same for art.