ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRIT MONEY SURVEY

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

An ancient Chinese ritual that has endured through the centuries and is alive today in the practitioners of Taoism is the practice of ancestor worship. Part of this age-old tradition is to burn spirit money, or fabricated currency, so that the smoke rises to the heavens and becomes consumable to the ancestors who reside in the spirit world.

Naturally, this has become a wide-spread practice and the ballooning populations of Asian cities are burning more spirit money at various times of the year than is environmentally sustainable. This practice can be found in major urban metropolises like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, and Taipei. The sheer amount of burning spirit money each year is staggering.

As part of my MA Interactive Media course at Bournemouth University (UK), I am conducting a survey to explore burning spirit money in Chinese folk religion. I want to understand the motivation behind the burning of spirit money and inquire whether Asian communities would accept an on-line version of this practice, so as to be less harmful to the environment. This survey is very valuable for my research and the questionnaire will be used solely for research purposes. The research methodology involves conducting interviews and sending questionnaires through email, to friends and acquaintances, and distributing them to students in the library and at other locations. This questionnaire cannot be entirely random, as it is necessary to engage ethnically Chinese people who are in the habit of burning spirit money for their ancestors, a group which must be sought and selected in a country like the United Kingdom.

I have so far interviewed 8 persons randomly and sent 40 questionnaires to friends and other contacts (some of whom I do not know) and students in the library. In this survey, the target audience is the young generation from 18 – 40 years old. It is necessary to target this group because predominant generation of Internet users. These people may make decisions that affect their cultures and communities forever and represent the future of ethnic traditions and practices. Indeed it is this group that will decide the future of their cultures, and their feedback is essential.

In total, thirty-two persons have responded to the questionnaire to date. In addition, eight of those thirty-two have been interviewed in person. Although this is quite a number of people, it can in no way represent trends or thinking patterns in populations as large as the Taoist communities of Asia, where the number of practitioners may very well be in the hundreds of millions, figures too gigantic for a discussion like this one. The sampling in this research is a tiny slice of that enormous pie and is in no way meant to suggest that the findings in the data could serve as any kind of cultural barometer of Taoist Asia. It is merely a sample intended to measure a small reaction to the idea of on-line spirit money and to simply hint as to its viability. This research is not a case study, either, but considering the size of the sample, operates more in that realm of numbers, a tiny spoonful of reaction in an ocean of possibility.
…………………………………………………………………
QUESTION 1
Do you burn hell money for your ancestors?

25 people YES (78.1%)
07 people NO (21.9%)

Total 32 people (including those 8 interviewed face to face).

QUESTION 2:1
How much do you spend? (**RM = Malaysian Ringgit Currency)

12 persons did spend on spirit money but don’t know how much.
2 persons spent less than RM20
11 person spent more than RM20
7 persons didn’t spend at all

QUESTION 2:2
How often do you burn?

7 persons don’ t burn (21.87%)
8 persons burn once a year (25.00%)
14 persons burn twice a year (43.75%)
3 persons burn more than twice a year (9.38%)

QUESTION 3
Do your neighbours, friends, or family also burn hell money?

32 persons said YES
Only 2 persons said DO NOT KNOW

QUESTION 4
Would you consider using a website to send money to your ancestors?

11 (34.37%) persons said YES.
The reasons are YES: This is a new format, a new idea. It saves the environment and it’s fun, easy, and quick. This will pass the idea of this dying culture to the next generation; in a way it preserves the idea. It will prevent further environmental pollution, will save time and is comfortable. It is helpful to the environment and will save some money as well, etc.

21 (65.63%) persons said NO.
The reasons are NO: Some of the feedback on the negative side indicated people believed it to be insincere. It was thought to be against traditional practice, since the burning process is very important, and the new way was seen as being devoid of physical feeling. People were afraid that the ancestors would not be able to receive the money. Some said it sounded ridiculous and that the ancestors would not know where there money was going. It was thought that parents would be against it and that it would defeat the purpose behind money burning. It was even argued that the ancestors were not computer literate, and the new idea would not be appropriate.

QUESTION 5
If a website allows you to design or create hell money, would you consider using it to design/create your own hell money for your ancestors?

14 ( 43.75%) people said YES. The reasons are YES: Some of the respondents indicated that it would take more effort, which would prove their sincerity. Also it was thought to have more personality, would be more interesting and would be a fun and interactive idea.

18 (56.25%) people said NO. The reasons are NO: It takes a long time and is against traditional practice. No respect etc.

QUESTION 6
What is your age?

For this survey, all the target audience (interviewees) were between 18 – 40 years old. This new idea is focused on this group. This group of people is of the young generation. However, four seniors will be interviewed (55 years and above) to get their opinions about the new concept and idea on burning spirit money on-line.

QUESTION 7
Where do you live?

11 persons live in Malaysia, 10 persons live in Singapore, 7 persons live in China, 3 persons live in Taiwan and 1 person lives in Thailand.

QUESTION 8
Do you normally use a computer at home?
This survey shows a total 32 people use computers at home.

QUESTION 9
How do you feel about the smoke and pollution caused by hell money?

22 (68.75%) persons said they feel bad about smoke and the pollution caused by hell money.
10 (31.25%) persons said they do not feel bad.

QUESTION 10
Do you feel it bothers you or causes problems in your city?

20 (62.50% ) persons said they feel it is bothersome.
12 (37.50% ) persons said it does not bother them

……………………………………………………………………. (26 June 2006)

3 Aliens

Few design thumbnails

Diagram of The Benevolent Flame

Logo design (The Benevolent Flame)

These are the rough sketches of my project’s logo.

I chose below logo as my project branding logo.

I believe that the logo is critical and carries the weight of corporate identity , so I put considerable effort into its conception. I found it too complex and needed to simplify it. Finally, I decided on the title “The Benevolent Flame” and deleted the lotus I had originally attached for the sake of simplicity.

The FINAL logo design show below:

Feedback from interviewees

Please see below:

Utopias and heterotopias link to burning spirit money idea…

The idea of regulated spaces and things in the universe that is relative to each other can part of the basis of this research. As we see, everything is relative to something else. When people burn spirit paper, the smoke goes up to the sky and supposedly reaches the ancestors. Where does the smoke go? Of course it stays in Earth’s atmosphere, but it benefits the ancestors who reside in the spirit world. That means that although there is no way to physically reach them, even with the burning of spirit money, they do receive the rewards we send them. Therefore, this is an act of religion and spirituality which only has its connection in a supernatural or spiritual domain. With understand this, we can use other methods that is smoke free to perform spiritual rituals and still gives blessings to our ancestors. It seems that because this act transcends the physical and the spiritual worlds, the smoke itself is not necessary and can be produced through a computer and the same offerings made to the ancestors while making the physical world a cleaner place. This should actually please the spirits

Perhaps this is the reason we need to send things to our ancestors. Even though their world is spiritual, they still seem to reside in a world where sites are relative to each other, where all things have given spaces and make up definite sites.  Taoists believe that the spiritual realm is one where the goods and materials of life can be found in death, and that we can help to fill up the spiritual world of our ancestors through the smoke of burned spirit money and goods. The idea of “sites” is alive and well, so to speak, in the spiritual world of the dead.

Below are some thoughts about how the spirit world is an utopia, but follows the principals of heterotopias. I’m not saying that the spirit world is a heterotopia. For us it is more of a utopia, but because it has so many similarities to a heterotopia, it has the qualities of a mirror, both real and not real (Michel Foucault, 1967). I try to argue that a computer using cyberspace (heterotopia and utopia) may be the perfect place to send money to the spirit world because they are so closely linked. 

According to Micheal Foucault, He argues that sites can be either real places or not real places, although both exist. The spirit world to us must be an utopia (unreal place) because we can not see it or go there physically. That is exactly the same as with utopias because they are spaces we can conceive in our minds but can never go there. What is cyberspace? Where is it? It’s everywhere and it’s nowhere. Where to the ancestors stay? –everywhere and nowhere. These spaces are mental, psychological, and of course spiritual. Since sending spirit money by smoke is a purely physical act (in terms of human sites and spaces – the sky is a holder of sites like the land or the sea; think of airplanes, satellites and weather balloons). The smoke we send shares space with all these things and remains in the atmosphere in invisible form. The smoke isn't actually reach the spirit world in any physical way. 

It makes good sense then to send things to an utopia by using an utopia to get it there. Let cyberspace (a non-physical space) be the medium that we send spirit gifts to heaven (another non-physical space). There has been some mention that people might feel that their gifts are not reaching their ancestors because no actual smoke is being produced (some of my interviewees said that), but according to this theory, cyber spirit money may actually be more effective than smoke because we are dealing with two similar realms, the non-physical cyber world and the non-physical spirit world. This could be better insurance that our ancestors receive our non-physical offerings.

Cyber space and the spirit world are utopias (non-physical places or sites). However, like the mirror which is both utopia and heterotopia (both real and unreal) the connection between cyberspace and those using it is through a heterotopia, a computer. Servers and phone lines and the like are also part of the relativity of this connected web. The computer also allows us to make a connection to another utopia, the spirit world, hence it mirrors, the mirror itself in being somewhere between utopia and heterotopia.

Questionnaire answers

I sent about 15-20 questionnaire files to people for my final project. Some poeple are my friends and some are friends of my friends ( I don't know them). I also interviewed (+ questionnaire files) about 8-10 people for my project and 10 questionnaire files gave to the people I don't know). So all total now is about 30+.

Below are some letter that i sent by email.

One day viral marketing workshop project to help the charity TortureCare.

Thursday, June 15th 2006,
Time: 11.00am – 4.00pm
Place: W112, Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University.

Today, Alexandra Moscadelli, TortureCare Communications Fundraiser and Philip Cartland the TortureCare Webmaster presented the brief for us. (http://www.torturecare.org.uk/). In the workshop, we were asking to design ideas for an interactive viral marketing campaign for the Medical Foundation (MF) for the Care of Victims of Torture. The objective of this workshop is to raise the profile of the MF and raise awareness of the need of their work to assist torture survivors arriving to the UK and also to gain supporters.

We divided to 2 groups. Xavier, Gideon, Mats and me are in one group. We came up 3 ideas. One of the idea below from our group.

Concept/ idea: It is an interactive narrative in which the users can change the sequence of the story from bad/torture life to happy life. Users can choose from the pictures at the "Slide picture frame" and drag them to the timeline (4 pictures only) at the top to make their own story. After making the story, they can save it or send to friends to read. By doing this viral concept, everyone can tell their stories. And change their sad stories to happy stories through Medical Foundation help and support.

Story: Above is an example of the story of Dina.

Utopias and Heterotopias

Sometimes people want to make categories of different sites. We can group them by movement (trains, buses, cars) or places of relaxation (cafes, beaches, cinemas) or even sites where we are at rest (house, bedroom, bed). However, sites of a specific type- sites that are in relation to all other sites, but contradict all other sites at the same time.

There are two types:

Type 1: Utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. This could be cyberspace or the place where a telephone conversation takes place. The space is not real.

Type 2: Heterotopias. These are real places, but they are absolutely different from all other places. For example, a mirror is a heterotopia because it is a real thing in a real place but it is different because it is also a utopia (not a real space). This happens because although a mirror is an object, you can see in the mirror, something that is not really there – yourself! That is why a mirror has a relationship to everything else and is an object (heterotopia), but what you see in the mirror is not a real place. That makes it a utopia.