The Fantastical Variety Of Chinese Temple Offerings

Chinese followers of Buddhism love to burn things at their temples. There's usually a round incinerator at a temple complex and the basic item to burn is yellow prayer paper. For many Chinese, making a burn offering tailored to a loved ancestor is the smallest gesture they can do. The thought is: grandpa needs things in his afterlife and you need to provide them.

Provide what? Anything your ancestor might need and/or have enjoyed. Well, you can't just burn an SUV. What to do? No worries, where there is a market, there are providers. Behold the paper offering store.

That's right, anything you can imagine has been reproduced in paper. Cheaper than the original thing, obviously ripe for burning. Let's start with something basic. Favorite shirt? Heap o' patterns available.

Going bigger. How about a nice bicycle or a whole house? Buy it, burn it!

Sportin' fancy shoes is big, obviously in the afterlife you gotta be looking good strutting around heaven.

More footwear, some blingy sandals for the ladies. And then there are the kits. Think boxes filled with related items. Maybe kitchen supplies. Here you have a gambler's starter kit. Win some godly favors for the family!

No idea is too esoteric. Obviously, after playing hard at the poker table in your white loafers, you slink home and get ready for bed. You need those nice toiletries. Maybe you need teeth. It will be offered. The best detail, the purposely copyright jilting brand name misspellings and alterations.

What a great world, where Chinese holy offerings can have something in common with a trashy American kids diversion from the 1970s: Wacky Packages.

Details Of Kuching

Oh, small town of Kuching, show us what makes you unique. Or just give us some freaky good things.

The fisherman with his small bag of eggs.

Construction and cell tower. Back to fishing, the ice man cometh and delivereth. Bags get emptied onto a chute that sends ice down into a boat's hold. Pure analogue and muscle.

Waiting room at a medical clinic.

Laundry business, scale front and center, ready to receive. Smelly durian, best sold out of the back of a van in a parking lot. Fruit, on the down low.

At the butcher, a bin of chicken feet.