Burning Joss Paper Is Not "Feudal Superstition" but Cross-Cultural Emotional Heritage
03 Dec 2025
On a spring afternoon in Toronto, Chinese mother Lin Xiaomei squatted in her backyard. Beside her, her mixed-race son Xiao An held a piece of joss paper printed with a dragon boat pattern and asked curiously: "Mom, is the boat on this the one grandpa took when he was a kid?" Lin nodded and pointed at the pattern, telling the story of her father's childhood in the water towns of Guangdong. When the flame rose, Xiao An suddenly placed his chocolate beside the tray: "Give grandpa a taste of my snack too." This scene is the best answer to the question "It's 2025, why still burn joss paper?" — it has never been outdated feudal superstition, but a carrier of emotional heritage that transcends cultures and generations.
For a long time, joss paper has always been labeled as "superstition", but few people delve into its essence. Just as Westerners place roses loved by the deceased in front of tombstones, and Japanese place rice balls loved by their relatives during the Obon Festival, the act of burning joss paper by Chinese people essentially boils down to "accompanying the deceased in a familiar way". This emotional need has never had cultural boundaries. In São Paulo, Brazil, when Chinese neighbor Uncle Zhang taught local resident Carlos how to worship, Carlos's question was exactly the same as Xiao An's: "Does burning paper really work?" When Uncle Zhang told him, "The important thing is not the paper, but the feeling that you are thinking of him", Carlos tried to light the joss paper printed with a fusion pattern of Jesus and auspicious clouds, and whispered "Dad, I miss you", his eyes instantly welling up.
This cross-cultural resonance is common in our user feedback. Anna, a folklorist in Berlin, included our "Eastern-Western Fusion Style" joss paper in her "Global Worship Culture Atlas". The front of this joss paper features the traditional vermilion seal of "Heaven and Earth Bank", and the back has Western olive branch totems. She wrote in the book: "The ash in the flame has no national borders, and the longing it carries is essentially the same as all worship symbols." At the Qingming event of a Chinese community in Los Angeles, a more interesting scene appeared: Chinese elders taught foreign friends to fold paper ingots, while foreign friends taught everyone to decorate the worship tray with flower petals. Joss paper and roses burned in the same flame without any sense of incompatibility.
Having focused on the cross-border joss paper field for many years, we have always believed that selling products is just a carrier; the core is to convey the concept of "respecting cultural differences and safeguarding common emotions". To put this concept into practice, we have spent a lot of effort on design: for Chinese families, we launched the "Hometown Memory Style", which can be customized to print landmark buildings of the relatives' hometowns. Just like the dragon boat style used by Lin Xiaomei for Xiao An, it allows children to touch the stories of their ancestors through patterns; for local users, we designed the "Cultural Fusion Style", combining Eastern cloud patterns with Western elements such as angels and olive branches to adapt to emotional expressions of different cultures; all products are made of degradable bamboo pulp paper and have passed environmental certifications in 12 countries around the world, so they can be used with confidence even in countries with strict environmental requirements such as Germany and Canada.
Logistics support is even more to ensure that longing is not blocked by distance. We have set up overseas warehouses in 8 countries including the United States, Germany, and Brazil. Each package is accompanied by a compliance certificate in the local language and a worship etiquette manual. Mr. Chen, a Chinese in Sydney, once shared: "Previously, the joss paper I bought from another brand was detained by customs, and I missed Qingming. Your package arrived in 3 days, and the manual also wrote down the precautions for worship in Australia. The whole family felt very at ease during the ancestor worship." What moved us even more was that a Mexican user customized joss paper printed with corn totems, saying that he wanted to worship his Chinese wife and Mexican father together, allowing the two cultures to meet in the ritual.
Back in the backyard in Toronto, Xiao An watched the ash drift into the sky and suddenly said: "Mom, did grandpa receive our gift?" Lin smiled and said: "Yes, because we have always been thinking of him." This is probably the most essential meaning of joss paper: it is not a "currency" to another world, but an "emotional bridge" connecting the living and the deceased; it has nothing to do with superstition, but only with the obsession of "I still remember you", and the common love and longing in different cultures. When joss paper crosses national borders and is passed between hands of different skin colors, what we see is the simplest and most precious emotional heritage of human beings — no matter what method is used, we don't want the deceased loved ones to be alone.
Interactive Topic: In cross-cultural scenarios, what examples of "expressing longing in different ways" have you seen? A Western friend’s "tombstone concert," or an Eastern neighbor’s "spirit money tutorial"? Share below
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