A newly opened convenience store at a public funeral parlor in Keelung is the first of its kind in the city, offering a variety of products that one does not usually find in convenience stores and where standard greetings and farewells are taboo.
Well-stocked with food, household goods and other everyday items, the store at the Keelung Mortuary Services Office looks just like any normal convenience store, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported on Sunday.
“We have everything a convenience store would have, just on a smaller scale,” the proprietor, surnamed Kuo (郭), was quoted as saying.
There is a whole shelf stocked with all sorts of paper offerings — commonly burned in funerals to provide for the deceased in the afterlife — from traditional religious offerings to more unconventional items, such as iPhones, sports cars and heavy-duty motorcycles, she said.
To pay their last respects, bereaved families usually burn papier-mache of items that deceased family members enjoyed or did not possess in life, Kuo said.
Cellphones are the most popular paper replicas, as many grieving families assume that the departed would like to stay “plugged in” in the next world, she said.
If the deceased was elderly, family members usually buy a mahjong set or a villa as an offering, but if the person died at a young age, they might choose a sports car, she said.
Located near a graveyard, the store is open only during the day — unlike the usual 24/7 convenience stores, she said.
It is closed at night not because she is afraid of ghosts, “but because there is no business [at night],” she said.
The store is only open from 7am to 5pm because the funeral parlor closes at dusk.
Saying that many customers have asked her if she fears the patronage of “ghost customers,” Kuo said she does not think about it.
However, there is one taboo that Kuo observes: She does not welcome customers with the traditional greetings that other stores do, acknowledging their presence with a cordial nod, as she does not want to disturb them during their time of grief.
Neither does she tell them to come again, as she does not wish them to revisit the shop and the funeral parlor, she said.
The summer’s scorching heat has driven up demand for cold drinks, she said, adding that the store has seats for people to cool off, read a newspaper or watch television.
A customer said he had bought a large stack of ghost money, a paper cellphone and paper clothing, adding that it is very helpful to have a convenience store at the funeral parlor, the report said.
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