Is burning joss paper superstition? For anyone who does not believe, but whose mother does

One more line we will not use, while we are at it: “science cannot explain it”. It sounds open-minded, but it quietly hints that the thing works. We do not play that game.

Who is this for?

You grew up abroad, or your family moved when you were small. You have seen the rituals at home, but nobody ever really explained them.

And once or twice a year, your mother suddenly becomes very anxious and reminds you about it. Often enough that it gets a little tiring, and you are never quite sure how to respond, because a voice in your head says: “Isn’t this just superstition?”

And then you are not sure you are even allowed to think that, because it is your mother.

That is a tight spot to be in. We would like to loosen it a little.

What did Confucius say about spirits?

This question is not new. Confucius is well known for leaving the question of spirits open. Two lines from the Analects (論語), the record of Confucius’s sayings compiled by his followers:

Put plainly: if you have not yet sorted out the business of the living, why talk about spirits? Treat them with respect, but do not get too close.

This is one of the most influential teachers in the Chinese tradition, and that was his attitude. These lines do not make belief the price of taking part.

The line most worth thinking about is this one:

In other words: when you make the offering, act as though they are there.

Notice that the line does not claim they are there, or that they are not. What he describes is an attitude, not a statement of fact.

To be honest: scholars down the centuries have read these lines differently. Some read Confucius as doubtful, others as putting ritual first. We will not pick one reading as the only correct one. But under any of them, none asks you to prove it works before you do it.

Does burning joss paper actually “work”?

Asking whether burning joss paper “works” is the same kind of question as asking whether singing happy birthday “works”.

• Singing happy birthday does not make anyone live longer.
• Exchanging rings at a wedding does not make a marriage automatically secure.
• Leave a bunch of flowers at a grave, and within days they will be drying out.
• The number still saved in your phone that nobody will ever answer again: what is that “for”?

Hardly anyone asks these questions, because most of us understand that these things are not measured by results.

What a ritual does is give a feeling a shape. It turns something abstract, missing someone, into something you can physically do.

In what it is as an act, burning an offering belongs with the things above. Part of the difference is that you did not grow up inside this culture, so it does not feel natural to you, while singing happy birthday does.

To be clear: this is an argument, not a factual claim. You are free to disagree with it.

What is your mother actually worried about?

This is the last thing we want to say.

You might assume her worry is about the ritual itself: whether it gets done, and done correctly.

It may not be.

Sometimes what she is worried about is this: will anyone still remember?

That her own parents will be forgotten. That one day she will be forgotten too. That the family’s memory will simply fade.

That worry does not depend on believing in the supernatural. It is a very human, very ordinary worry, and not one that belongs to any single culture.

And you can entirely not believe, and still understand that this matters a great deal to her.

The two can sit side by side. You do not need to pretend to believe in order to respect her, and you do not need to refuse to understand her in order to be honest.

So what are we saying?