what i don't know could fill a book.
i needed to break a twenty to get on the bus today, and went into the vietnamese shopping mall on the corner to do it. i'm never sure what's going on in the little "gift shop" there, but i never feel very welcome. there are things in there i've been wanting to photograph for this blog; namely, some large, ornate paper dollhouses. but i'm afraid. the vietnamese shopkeepers don't seem happy to see me in the first place, so i doubt they're gonna like me with a camera.
today i bought these two lumpy packets marked "joss paper". i figured that what was on the outside was what was on the inside, too, just folded up. i picked a red one and a green one, thinking, well, here's some xmas wrapping paper - it's completely bizarre and out of this world, it's got nokia phones and ugly cars and houses on it, as well as dragons. also, each packet had a little foil wristwatch attached to it, but i didn't wonder why; why bother to wonder?
when i got home and inspected the packages, i noted that i had paid $1.25 for one of them but only .99 for the other. i wasn't sure why - until i "unfolded" them.
what i had been drawn to was not a folded sheet of paper, but an envelope - containing (in the more expensive of the two) a paper set of clothes, shoes and a hat. the cheaper packet had all these items but no hat. i said to ben, "are we supposed to burn someone in effigy?" and
ben
replied, "i'd be surprised if they made a kit for doing that."
we were flummoxed. but really, i was closer than i thought: i've been seeing the words "joss paper" all my life and never bothered to ask what it might be, or be for. i looked up "joss paper" on wikipedia and, well, now it all makes perfect sense - in fact, i saw the hell bank notes when i was there today, too. i saw a lot of packets of paper "toys" that all looked vaguely, well, aspirational - credit cards, jewelry - but all made of paper. are the "dollhouses" for burning, too?
i need to look more into all of this. the guys at the pho place are friendly - almost to a fault, as whenever i go there to work through lunch at least three waiters need to come over to ask me both what i'm reading and what i'm writing - but i'm not sure that anybody there can explain to me in english what all this is about. i'm not even sure what my questions are, which puts me at my usual disadvantage.
i'm still using the envelopes for holiday gift wrap. can i make some joss paper items for a dog who's dead? like, joss paper biscuits or squeak toys?