Chinese Ancestor worship is a Taoist practice in nature, practiced by a large number of ethnic Chinese in Singapore. Taoist, Buddhist and even Roman Catholic Chinese are condoned to practice ancestor worship. The only exception are Chinese people who adhere to various Protestant denominations, and possibly Muslims, in which case Chinese ancestor worship is being viewed as pagan rituals and thus not condoned in practice.

In the past, Chinese families own ancestral tablets with the ancestor's name inscribed on it. Such tablets are placed on ancestral altars, and urns meant for placing joss sticks and food offerings are usually placed in front of it. Ancestral tablets found in Chinese homes only states the name of patrlineal ancestors and their wives, of the family. With the advent of modernism, such practices have almost vanished, and only Taoist or Buddhist altars can be found in Chinese homes.

Chinese families chose to have their ancestors to be cremated or buried in coloboriums and cemeteries respectively. Chinese families would visit their ancestor's resting place, especially during Qingming Festival. They would bring joss sticks, incense papers and food offerings to the ancestor. Incence papers come in various forms, and devout worshippers often fold incence papers into different shapes, depending on their patterns.

According to Chinese custom and tradition, people worshipping to ancestors at Chinese cemeteries or colobariums must first lay out their offerings and prayer items before burning the joss stick. The worshippers would then recite their prayers, which usually involve asking for wishes to their ancestors. The worshippers would then proceed to placing their joss sticks on a sandy gaps, or anywhere around the grave. Worshippers will then proceed to pay their respects to the ancestral shrine in the cemetery or colobarium, the shrine of gods from the four directions; North, South, East and West. Prayer methods are the same as worshipping the ancestor, and placing three joss sticks for every individual in front of sacred mounments is the preferred way of offering.

The worshippers would then burn the incence papers in front of the ancestor. Devout worshippers would arrange the incence papers in accordance to Chinese customs with the help of "Yim bou" as the supporting base. Worshippers would collect the food after worship.

Incense papers

Incense papers used for ancestor worship comes in several forms, each of whom represents a present for the ancestor's spirit. Papers coloured yellow with a gold foil printed on it represents a gold tael; those with a silver foil represents a silver tael. By practice, these papers are supposed to be wrapped into the shape of a tael before being burned in the urn.

Another variant are single-coloured papers which is manufactured with a rougher surface on one side and a smoother surface on the other side. Such papers come in varying colours. Each incence paper of this type is to be rolled up and snugged tightly at both ends. The smoother face must form the exnterior surface, while the rougher face must form the interior surface. Incence papers of this variant is used to represent clothes to wear for the ancestor. Papers with a soft and rough surface printed in brown recycled paper serves as cloth.

Other variants include a Go lou zhi, usually printed yellow in colour, often encompass drawings of the zodiac and Buddha's hand to ward off evil spirits. Hell bank notes of various sizes as well as Kai chin are used to represent paper money. All these incence papers are arranged and collected into a bundle known as Yim bou in accordance to significance. The brown incence papers that serve as cloth serves as the base. By practice, the base must have an even number of cloth papers, and one sheet must serve as the nucleus of the base. They are followed on by the bank notes, Kai chin, clothes and taels, and the Yim bou is gathered up, and burnt with a joss candle before throwing it into the urn. Joss papers manufactured into the shape of shirts and trousers are sometimes burnt together with the Yim bou.

hi brother jave... jus my opinion.. those yellow incense papers are not called guo lu chi.. instead called 往生钱 .. no offence to anyone.. jus sharin with u all what i know.. 'dao1'

Hi Bro,

you are aomehow right but in different areas, they have different types of printing.

Wang Sheng Qian in here can combine many Buddhist Mantras, whereas in Taiwan or Hong Kong, you can only see Da Bei Zou or Wang Sheng Zou printed on the yellow joss.

Guo Lu Qian, till now, still no definiate answer on which type of joss to be consider as that. So in folks culture, ppl tend to use normal Siew Kim, Yin or white form joss to represent the Guo Lu Qian.