Vancouver's "Memory Courier": Programmer A Jie's Custom "Digital Joss Paper" for His Father
03 Dec 2025
Rare drizzle fell on Vancouver before Qingming Festival. A Jie sat at the desk in his apartment, his fingertips hovering above the phone screen—99 unanswered calls labeled "Dad" in the call log felt like a tiny thorn in his heart. On the day his father died in a sudden car accident, A Jie had just fixed the last blockchain bug in the late night of Silicon Valley. By the time he saw the news, the last flight from the airport had already taken off.
There were two things left by his father on the desk: a pair of well-worn chess pieces, with the words "A Jie is a poor chess player" carved by his father in the corner of the chessboard; an old button phone, which stored the only voice message—a nag from his father last year: "Your hair is so long that it covers your eyes, you don't look like a programmer." A Jie stroked the phone case and suddenly had an idea: as a programmer, what he was best at was building bridges of connection. Maybe he could build a "communication link" across life and death for his father.
After browsing an overseas Chinese forum for three days, A Jie finally found a studio specializing in "digital worship". When he went to the interview with his computer, he copied his father's photos, scanned copies of chess scores, and even that voice message into a USB drive. "I want these things to stay with him forever, like carved in his bones." After hearing his story, the studio director pointed to the blockchain interface on the screen: "We can encrypt this data and write it into a unique address as the anti-counterfeiting mark of 'digital joss paper', which will never be lost."
Two weeks later, A Jie received the customized "digital joss paper". The paper carrier was printed with flowing blue blockchain totems, a tiny NFC chip was embedded in the lower right corner, and the back was printed with the ink bamboo pattern that his father loved most—which A Jie generated with code and printed on it. On the night of Qingming, he placed the Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor) that his father loved on the balcony. The moment he lit the joss paper, his phone suddenly received a Bluetooth connection prompt.
"Dad, this time I 'sent you money'. Don't always buy cheap wine over there, and buy yourself a good set of chess," A Jie murmured to the flickering flame, and subconsciously clicked on the interface after connection. On the screen, his father's black-and-white photo slowly appeared, with a line of small characters popping up below: "Blockchain address activated, data stored permanently". After burning the last piece of paper, he received an email from the studio with the subject: "Your father's joss paper has been signed for by the 'Afterlife Server', merit value +10086". The attachment was a generated "receipt", with a hand-drawn illustration of A Jie playing chess with his father in the park when he was a child as the background.
Since that day, A Jie has become a regular customer of the studio and even helped them optimize the storage algorithm of "digital deathbed prayers". Until last month, when the studio launched the new "Quantum Memory Joss Paper", they sent a sample to A Jie immediately. This time, the NFC chip had a larger capacity, which could not only store high-definition photos and long voice messages, but also access an exclusive memorial page by scanning the code to generate a dynamic picture of the ancestor "signing for it".
A Jie tried to upload a family video taken on his father's 60th birthday, in which the old man held a wine glass and said, "I hope A Jie will get married soon". After scanning the code, the animation of successful blockchain verification first appeared on the screen, and then the picture switched to a virtual "Afterlife Tavern". His father's cartoon image took the joss paper and said with a smile, "I know, you rascal"—the tone was exactly the same as the voice message in the phone.
Last week, A Jie recommended this product to his Chinese colleague at the company. When the colleague's mother passed away, he was working on a project in Vancouver and also failed to see her for the last time. Watching the colleague's red eyes after scanning the code, A Jie suddenly realized that technology had never been cold code. Those memories hidden in the chip and the thoughts conveyed through algorithms were essentially the same as the warmth when his father hid candy in his pocket when he was a child.
The rain stopped, and the moonlight shone on the chess pieces through the balcony glass. A Jie picked up his phone and dialed the number that would never be answered, but this time, he didn't hang up in regret. Because he knew that some thoughts could reach accurately through another way, even across life and death.
Interactive Topic: What unsaid words do you want to leave for important people? Comment below
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