Instead, many on this island of 23 million people now opt to provide ancestral ghosts with more elaborate paper gifts - models of everything from Ferraris to iPhones, private jets and even villas. Many Taiwanese believe that burning a paper model makes a version of the item available to the dead in the spirit world.
For centuries, fake money was the primary gift for the island's dead. The first week after someone died was reserved for burning thick wads of yellow-colored paper cash - usually at relatives' homes.
Recently, novelty-seeking Taiwanese have increasingly turned to sophisticated paper models. They reflect a new desire to ensure that the dearly departed take with them what they need, rather than what may be useless wads of bills in a place where buying opportunities have never been convincingly documented.
Burning paper products for the dead reflects the importance of ancestor worship in Chinese cultures, as well as the belief that spirits can influence the fate of the living.
Taiwanese firms making the new-style paper gifts report booming business ahead of Monday's Ching Ming or Tomb-Sweeping Day, when millions in Chinese communities in Asia and beyond pay respects to their ancestors and dead relatives.
The Sky-Home Shop - one of several shops advertised on the Internet - looks like an up-market salon for billionaires, but its prices are within reach of many ordinary Taiwanese.
Pet houses, slot-machines, racing cars, villas and even private jets go for anywhere between 4,000 New Taiwan dollars ($125) and NT$25,000 ($780).
“Everything is handmade,” said Sky Home owner Huang Chih-kuo. “A car has a steering-wheel and seats that may be made of paper but actually look like genuine leather.” Huang said he takes special orders, including those for pistols and rifles complete with paper ammunition to allow weapons collectors or gangsters to continue their lifestyle as ghosts.
SKEA, another Taiwanese company in the paper-gifts-for-the-dead business, got its start in 2007 after the widow of a sumo wrestling fan requested a paper sumo platform for her dead husband.
“We saw how the gift brought a smile to the aging widow who had been crying her heart out,” SKEA manager Frank Han said.
SKEA has begun making an S model of the iPhone, complete with USB charger. Han said the company also is marketing an elaborate paper communications center that is supposed to ensure that the iPhone calls can make their way between the worlds of the dead and living.
