A mysterious world
The images on spirit money also reflect the world in which our ancestors lived.
Take "Tai Sui money," for example. Nowadays, people go to temples at the Lunar New Year to light candles and offer- spirit money to Tai Sui, the deity who oversees the current year, to appeal for a peaceful year. In the old days, our ancestors hung charms in the main hall of their homes as an offering to Tai Sui. Zhang's collection includes examples of Tai Sui money from the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the period of Japanese rule, each of which depicts Tai Sui in its own fashion.
"The Ming images depict Tai Sui as an official of the imperial secret police. The Qing portraits show him with the shaved head and queue typical of that period. In the Japanese era, burning spirit money was prohibited, so people changed "Tai Sui" to "Tai Shuai" and depicted him as a Japanese soldier in a cap.
The offerings made in front of the door to one's home on the first and 15th of each lunar month are called kao-jun and are dedicated to wandering spirits. Those made on the second and 16th are called -zuoya and are offered to the Earth God in hopes of receiving blessings on one's business. Zhang argues that while spirit money is burned during both ceremonies, it carries a different meaning in each. As he says, the kao-jun ceremony is for ordinary folk, while the -zuoya is for business people.
Whether an appeal for descendents in a hua-cong offering, a prayer for a safe year in a Tai Sui offering, or simply a monthly kao-jun or -zuoya ritual, spirit money is part and parcel of people's everyday lives. The veil of mystery surrounding the currency simply reflects a lack of knowledge. Zhang hopes to use education to lift that veil.
One of Taiwan's very few experts on spirit money, Zhang's life has been as rich and varied as his collection.
Born in Zhong-gang, Zhu-nan Township, -Miaoli County in 1953, Zhang graduated from Zhu-nan Junior High School, then tested into a private high school. But his family lacked the money for him to continue his education. Instead, he went north to Xin-zhuang at the age of 17 to learn to bake from his aunt's husband.
After completing his military service, Zhang opened his own bakery in Zhong-gang and went on to earn as much as NT$3 million in just one year. In 1978, he saw a Japanese man preparing to pay a local antiques dealer NT$5 million for 15 spirit money printing plates. Worried that local cultural artifacts were going to end up in Japanese hands, he urged against the sale. The shopkeeper responded, "I'll sell them to you for NT$3 million." Zhang bought them on the spot, and has been in love with collecting printing plates and spirit money ever since.
In the book The Art of Spirit Money, Li Feng-mao, a scholar of folk customs, writes: "Spirit money serves as an offering and a medium of communication during folk religious ceremonies. -Whether called xian-caibo or hua-zhi, spirit money is presented as an offering, burned so it may pass from the human world to that of the spirits, where it expresses the devotion of those making the offering."
Zhang says that spirit money isn't simply an object that represents respect for the supernatural and the unknown world; the process of burning it also facilitates the spiritual transformation of guilt and remorse into forgiveness and release, enabling participants to find peace. "Working from a basis in our hearts' desires and our material and spiritual needs, we use ceremonies and spirit money to seek consolation and hope from the unknown world. That's the real meaning of spirit money."
Flying on the wind
The removal of the acid leaves the bamboo paper pH neutral. The final step in the preservation process is to store it in a moisture- and fungus-resistant paulownia-wood box.