Description
A house, printed in gold on card, folded up from flat sheets in about ten minutes and burned whole. Twenty centimetres long, fifteen high, thirteen and a half wide — big enough to read as a building at the edge of a fire, small enough to go into a single burn without a pit. This is the 纸扎 house that goes with a full set: money first, then the house, then whatever the family wants sent after it.
Why a house, and why gold
The logic is the same as the money. In the older Chinese practice, a funeral set for a parent included a paper house, a paper car, paper servants — everything the household had, made again in paper and sent by fire. Gold is not decoration either: gold foil on a joss paper object is the standard mark of this is for the other side, the same way gold ingots folded from joss paper are burned alongside plain sheets. A gold card house reads, at the fire, as the finished article rather than a stack of card.
Assembly
The kit arrives flat, die-cut and scored. The folds are pre-creased: roof panels first, then the four walls, then the porch and the little chimney piece. No glue is needed for the structure — the tabs lock — though a dab of glue stick on the roof ridge keeps it square while it burns. Ten minutes is honest timing for a first attempt. If you are burning it at home, assemble it the night before so it stands straight; a house burned half-folded looks like what it is.
How to burn it
Set it on the ground or in the burner, front door facing the direction the family faces when they call the name. Light the base first, not the roof: the paper catches upward and the walls fall in on themselves, which is the correct order. Gold foil on card burns hotter and slower than plain joss paper, so give it room and do not stack money on top of it — burn the money first, then the house. Remove the thin film wrap if your pack has one; nothing plastic should go in the fire.
Ship it, or we burn it
Ship it to me — flat, in a rigid envelope, $5.95 worldwide. Burn it for me at the temple — we assemble it, write the name and address on a slip in your words, burn it on the next 1st or 15th at Dongyue Temple in Hebei, and send you the photo. The house and the money can go in the same burn if you order them together; we sequence money, house, then slip.
If you are still working out how much to send with it, How Much Ancestor Money to Burn gives the per-occasion amounts we use at the temple. The plain yellow sheets that usually go underneath are here.
Questions we answer every week
Burned assembled or flat?
Assembled. A flat sheet reads as card, not as a house; the whole point of the fold is that the object exists for the length of the burn. If the burner is small, fold it and burn it in two goes rather than flattening it.
Can it go in a coffin?
No. This is a fire offering, not a grave good. Objects placed in a coffin or buried are a different category, and in most jurisdictions a foil-laminated card object is not something a cemetery will accept in the ground.
Does it come with furniture?
No — house only. The furniture sets are sold separately by the temple and are not on the site yet. If you need one, write to info@ancestorbank.com and we will tell you what is in stock before you order.
