You Know You've Gone Overboard With Qing Ming Offerings

You know you've gone overboard with Qing Ming offerings when you start burning paper Viagra and condoms for the dead. [PDF]

For the (dead) Chinese man who has everything: cars and Viagra

[...] In the old days, all that the dead could hope for was paper "heaven money", or perhaps a bit of food. But with economic growth, variety and quality are matching the ambitions of China's new rich.

Now the offerings are getting out of hand, with one "graveyard shop" in the city of Nanjing selling paper Viagra, newspapers reported this week amid calls for the authorities to take action. [...]

As if burning paper effigies of maids, gardeners and drivers are not ridiculous enough. Now there's paper Viagra, condoms and call girls to go along? I can still accept the burning of hell (or heaven) notes and paper clothings, and to a certain extent paper bungalows and Mercedes Benz although I do not believe such offerings will actually reach the dead (eventhough some claim to have "seen" the dead receiving them) but paper Viagra, condoms and call girls is just stretching it too far.

Don't you think this is totally absurd?

Keywords: "You Know" Compendium paper Viagra condom effigy Qing Ming festival Cheng Beng Qingming Mercedes Benz