Burning Spirit Money In Vietnam

Over the Tết (New Year) period we saw a lot of people burning money – yes burning money on the side of the road.⁣

At first I thought nothing of the burning piles of rubbish as we saw a lot of this riding to Hanoi – it’s one way that they get rid of trash in Vietnam. ⁣

Stew decided to look into it since every burning pile in Hanoi contained cash. It turns out that this is a Tết tradition.⁣

According to Culture Trip (https://theculturetrip.com/asia/vietnam/articles/burning-paper-money-a-vietnamese-tet-tradition/) this is a tradition deeply rooted in Asian culture. As I understand it, they’re burning fake money or “spirit money” which is a replica of legal tender. ⁣

The idea is that the deceased still impact the way of the world. People buy packages of money to burn. It’s considered that the more they spend, the better the reward – I’m really uncomfortable with that notion. It feels very scammy to me. Some believe they will be rewarded with good health and good luck, others believe it’s a solution to resolve the financial problems that their ancestors left behind. ⁣

This isn’t the first time we’ve experienced spirituality like this in Asia. In Uzbekistan we were approached by a woman burning something – it was smoking and she wafted it all around us. I hated it, the smoke made me cough and it felt uncomfortable. She held out her hand. I was so confused because it didn’t feel bright. I honestly interpreted it that she’d cursed us and she wanted us to pay her to lift the curse! I asked an Uzbek who spoke good english and she explained this wasn’t the case – we’d been blessed apparently. Not sure how it works, because needless to say we didn’t hand over any of our hard earned cash! We watched her continue with this ritual and a few people paid her.⁣

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