A fascinating story here from Reuters, about how Chinese people in Malaysia are snapping up paper effigies of the iPad and iPad 2 in order to burn them as part of an ancient ritual that honours the dead. According to Reuters, the Qingming festival, also called the Tomb Sweeping Festival, is when Chinese communities throughout Asia burn fake paper money and paper replicas of other luxury items such as cars, or designer goods, and, in this instance, iPads.
Reuters reports that the festival, which is borne out of Confucian beliefs relating to family loyalty and tradition, is celebrated throughout Malaysia’s large Chinese community, which represents one quarter of that country’s 28-million-strong population.
Te initially had 300 paper iPad 2s for sale, but sold out of them very quickly. Even the paper iPads’ tech specs have special meaning in Te’s shop, with both the paper iPad 1 and iPad 2 having an 888 gigabyte capacity, as this is an auspicious number in Chinese culture.
Source: iPad 2 sold out in the afterlife as Chinese pray for the dead | Reuters
