With the arrival of the traditional Ghost Month, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) again urged urban residents to burn spirit money at municipal waste incinerators to prevent air pollution.
Yesterday in Kaohsiung City, an unusual ceremony was held at a newly cleaned municipal waste incinerator in Sanmin District.
In an address to the souls of the dead, Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Yao Kao-chiao (
"We hope residents cooperate to burn all spirit money at the incinerator on the 29th day of the seventh lunar month," Yao said.
Today marks the first day of the seventh lunar month, when traditional beliefs hold that the gates of the afterworld open so spirits can return to visit this world. During this month, people across Taiwan burn a considerable amount of spirit money (also called ghost money) -- paper cut or printed to resemble money and burned as offerings to the dead.
Families set a table with wine, meat and other foods to offer to their ancestors and ghosts from the underworld, particularly for the Ghost Festival on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. The table offerings are followed by burning spirit money, a customary means of thanking deceased ancestors or soothing roaming spirits from the netherworld.
The EPA says that burning spirit money in urban areas causes more concentrated air pollution than in rural counties. Therefore, since last year the agency has encouraged urban dwellers to burn spirit money in municipal waste incinerators.
Taipei City residents last year sent 260 tonnes of spirit money to incinerators. The figure for Taipei County was 100 tonnes, while in Kaohsiung City, the amount was 28 tonnes.
EPA officials said that this year the agency would promote the program in other urban areas, including Hsinchu and Taichung.
The 29th day is the last day of the lunar month, when the gates of hell close. At the ceremony yesterday, residents and Buddhist Masters from Foguangshan Mon-astery also offered incense and chanted to ask the gods' blessings.
Kaohsiung City environmental officials said that last year 109 communities supported central-ized burning, and that 28 tonnes of money paper were burned in the incinerator. They estimated the move prevented about 3 tonnes of air pollutants from being released in the city.
Officials said that the participation of 408 communities in the program this year might boost the amount of centrally burned spirit money to 100 tonnes. A free service is available to deliver spirit money to the incinerator until the scheduled burning date.
Officials said that burning spirit money outdoors causes a substantial amount of air pollution and could result in fines ranging from NT$5,000 to NT$100,000 for residents and NT$100,000 to NT$1 million for factories and companies.
To attract more residents to use the service, officials have arranged for eminent Buddhist masters to be in charge of the month-end burning ceremony, ensuring a successfully delivery of people's respects to the gods.
Environmental officials have also tried to encourage residents to skip the procedure of burning spirit money for the sake of environmental protection.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS