Offering

Joss papers (金纸, literally 'gold paper') are paper offerings and physical representations of money, and/or daily necessities, and are burnt in Chinese ancestral worship as ritual offerings to the dead. They are also used around Lunar New Year festivities. The Lunar New Year is not a public holiday in Thailand, but many ethnic Chinese, who make up about 15 percent of the population in Thailand celebrate it there. The offerings may have been made in Thailand, or imported from China.

Collected by the donor in Bangkok in either 1989 or 1995.

Joss paper offerings in the form of a shirt (part a) and pants (part b). The paper shirt has grey, off-white and orange-yellow polka dots on a deep brown-red background. The collar is stapled on, and there is a faux pocket and tie with two shiny dot stickers. The short paper pants have burgundy with red parrots on a light off-white background, with blue-grey, burgundy, black.