Joss Paper

My boyfriend recently lost his mother to pneumonia. We’ve been making preparations for her funeral for the past few days and have been busy folding joss paper to be burned as monetary offerings. I remember folding joss paper for my great grandmother’s funeral a few years ago but had since forgotten how to fold them into gold ingots. I figure this would make a pretty good tutorial and hopefully teach those who are interested in learning.

Joss Paper, also known as ghost or spirit money, are sheets of paper that are burned in worship ceremonies for traditional Chinese deity or ancestors during special holidays and Chinese funerals. Joss paper burning is usually the last performed act at funerals before the deceased is lowered into the ground.

There are many ways to fold joss paper. The simplest way is by rolling the joss paper into a tube, tucking the ends in to hold its form and folding the pointed ends up.

Another way to fold joss paper is in the shape of a gold ingot. Start with a piece of joss paper with the gold or silver side facing down. Fold the bottom about 3/4″ up so that you have a more rectangular piece of paper. The thicker the fold, the wider the ingot.

Now fold the entire piece of joss paper in half.

Make sure the side with more gold or silver is facing you. Fold the bottom left corner up into a triangle.

Do the same to the upper right corner. You should end up with a parallelogram.

Now comes the tricky part. Fold the parallelogram back, matching the longer sides in a straight line.

Fold the triangle back, tucking in the bottom corner to the back of the other triangle. Pinch only the bottom, leaving the top tip of the triangle curved. This will make the ingot look rounder later.

Do the same with the other side.

You should end up with something like this…

Now open the bottom of the joss paper. Carefully pinching the middle of the bottom will hold the tucked corners to make it easier to open and maintain its shape.

It’s probably easier to turn it around so that the gold is facing you as you are opening the ingot.

Push down the middle of the ingot to create a nice round center. It takes practice but gets easier after a few tries.

You should end up with little gold and silver ingots made of joss paper.

For a video tutorial, check out moodyjackhk’s youtube.

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