Purchasing votive effigies on Hang Ma Street, Hanoi.

VietNamNet Bridge – According to tradition, the lunar July is the month to give thanks and praise to parents and ancestors as well as to help lost souls. However, this tradition has taken on some of the trappings of the modern age.

Hi-tech products for all

Knowing that I wanted to buy votive objects for my father in law, an owner of a votive shop at Ba Chieu Market (HCM City) asked: “How long has he been dead? If he died in the past several years, you can buy an ATM Amphu (Hades) Bank card to burn for him”.

“With this kind of ATM card, he can buy anything he wants. You should burn money and money transfer documents – like money orders - every several months for him so his cards will be always full,” she added.

The seller also introduced some kinds of new products that have just appeared this lunar July: a gift coupon named Amphumart with face values from $100 to $1,000, which allow the dead to go shopping at ‘underworld supermarkets’.

HCM City’s Binh Tay Market is famous as a place producing votive subjects for export. There a man offered: “You can buy everything for the dead here. If you can’t find the thing you need, you can place an order”.

“Nowadays, no one sends ordinary TV sets to the dead, but LCDs. We have LCDs with screens showing all kinds of current game shows,” he added.

At another shop, the seller recommended products for the dead: “Laptops for businessmen, I-pod MP3 players or O2 mobile phones for the young...”

Burning “Nga Mi” girl for the gameboy

That’s a story that locals in Tran Van Dang Road, District 3, HCM City have told recently.

There is a family located on that road that had four daughters and one son. Since they had only one son, the son was overindulged.

After graduating from secondary school, the boy only stayed at home and idled around. When an online game called Swordman appeared in Vietnam, the boy was always at the Internet shop rather than at home. His sisters had to bring meals to the Internet shop to him while his mother paid for the game on a monthly basis.

About two months ago he died in a traffic accident. His parents spent more than VND10 million to buy votives to burn to him.

Some gamers told the woman that her son had loved Swordman very much, and that to become an excellent player of this game, each gamer needed to have a girl who is a follower of the Nga Mi kungfu sect to follow, and who would help the gamer recover energy. And so, the parents ordered votive producers to make a life-size Nga Mi girl to help their son become an outstanding gamer in the underworld.

(Source: NLD)