Living art for the dead : heritage of traditional funerary paper-offerings

Abstract

During the celebration of traditional Chinese festivals and rituals, colourful lanterns, flower plaques and lion heads are often seen. People appreciate these paper crafts which celebrate meaning. When discussing Chinese funerary paper offerings, many people consider this topic a taboo or a gift to ancestors in Asian cultures. After funerary paper offerings are diligently created by the master (called as ‘Shifu’ in Cantonese), they are at once burnt and turned into ashes. Such heritage items with high art content are quickly disappearing as they become detached from the younger generations due to lack of understanding and appreciation. Chinese paper offerings were listed in the Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Inventory in 2017, demonstrating that this unique craft has been officially recognized as one of Hong Kong’s important heritage. Paper offerings have a broad scope, covering various ritual occasions. There is a highly specialised form of paper-offerings that is exclusively used for the funerary purpose, and this type of offering has not been researched, resulting in little understanding of its making and meaning as an artistic, commercial or spiritual expression. The author is a secondary school art teacher who appreciates that funerary paper offerings are art pieces and wants to identify the tangible and intangible values of them. The author had made artwork with joss paper, bamboo and glue, the same materials as the funerary paper offering; however, it was not allowed to bring back home because it was considered as unfortunate. Traditional funerary paper offerings have made good progress in keeping up with market trends as Hong Kong society develops. This dissertation will focus on documenting the funerary paper offering industry transformation in Hong Kong and current trends. The aim of this dissertation is to firstly understand the making and meaning of the funerary paper offering and secondly, to study how the traditional paper offering shops and craftsmen survive in Hong Kong through case studies.