For Gods, Ghosts And Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition Of Paper Offerings

摘要

Janet Lee Scott knows everything about Chinese paper art and the Chinese habit of burning paper votive offerings to their dead, spirits and gods. This knowledge has gone into a highly interesting and well-documented book in which she introduces the reader to a vibrant world where fantastic shapes and designs combine with gorgeous colours to produce a range of spectacular gifts crafted in paper. These paper artefacts form various kinds of symbolic wealth to be transferred to some other transcendental world. All this imagery is cut and glued by masters of the trade and sold in special shops, or at temple stalls. The motifs of these artefacts vary from the representations of gods and godlings to mundane features such as houses, motorcars, refrigerators, electrie fans, furniture, toothpaste, cigarettes, articles of clothing and foodstuffs.