Denis Staunton: Burning ghost money ahead of Chinese New Year festival

There were five of them standing on the corner shortly after 9pm, two women and three men and although it was hard to tell in the dark, they all looked somewhere between 25 and 45 years old. Two of the men were carrying metal sticks about a metre long, the other man and one of the women held sheets of paper while the second woman was crouching as she chalked something on the ground.

Was this some kind of demonstration, like the protests against zero-Covid last November marked by young people holding blank sheets of paper as a symbol of censorship? Before I had a chance to ask my Chinese companions, we had reached the group of five and saw that the woman had drawn a chalk circle with an opening like the neck of a bottle.

“They’re going to burn paper,” one of my friends said.

A number of diners had suitcases with them, ready to take the night train home to their families in other parts of China

One of the men held a lighter to the edge of one of the sheets of paper, which were covered in red characters, and set it alight. Soon there was a small bonfire in the middle of the chalk circle, with coils of smoke drifting upwards into the night as the men poked at it with their sticks.

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They were burning ghost money, also known as hell money, for their ancestors to use in the afterlife, a ceremony performed around big festivals including Chinese New Year which is on Sunday.

“The circle has to have an opening facing north for the ghosts to come in and out to take the money,” my friend told me.

We were on our way from dinner to the opening of a new bar near the Workers’ Stadium, where the clubs and bars have returned in a brilliant flash of neon since the end of zero-Covid. The restaurant had been full, partly because many places in Beijing have already closed for new year, and a number of diners had suitcases with them, ready to take the night train home to their families in other parts of China.

As we picked from clay pots full of shrimp, chicken, beef, tofu, vegetables and rice as they rolled around on a Lazy Susan, the seven of us talked about the food, the traffic, our travel plans for new year and beyond, the latest films and Beijing’s favourite brand of baijiu, a strong liquor made from sorghum. Nobody mentioned coronavirus.

The Chinese authorities said last Saturday that 60,000 people had died with coronavirus in hospitals between December 8th and January 12th, although they acknowledged that others who died at home have not yet been included in the death toll. The National Health Commission said on Thursday that the number of people needing critical care because of the virus had already peaked and numbers attending fever clinics were falling.

In a video message this week, however, President Xi Jinping expressed concern about the impact on rural areas as millions travel from the cities for new year family reunions.

“China’s Covid prevention and control is still in a time of stress, but the light is ahead, persistence is victory,” he said.

“I am most worried about the rural areas and farmers. Medical facilities are relatively weak in rural areas, thus prevention is difficult and the task is arduous.”

Some international forecasters are predicting a huge death toll in China as the virus moves through the population unchecked

Chinese drug manufacturers have accelerated production of medicines to treat coronavirus symptoms, including cough and fever but Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid, which is widely used in western countries, is hard to come by. Some international forecasters are predicting a huge death toll in China as the virus moves through the population unchecked but Chinese health officials believe the mortality rate will be well below that of Europe and the United States.

With 1.1 million coronavirus deaths, the US had a mortality rate of 3,214 deaths per million people, while the EU’s 1.2 million translates into 2,630 deaths per million people. Chinese analysts have been studying the experience in New Zealand, which followed a zero-Covid policy until October 2021, after which the number of deaths increased sharply.

Even after the end of zero-Covid New Zealand’s mortality rate of 435 deaths per million people is just one-seventh of that of the United States. China’s hope is that its vaccination programme, even with its limitations, the accumulation of medical expertise during the pandemic and a weakening of the virus itself will mean that three years of zero-Covid will blunt the deadly impact of opening up.