Time of Worship by A from taiwan

Burning incense is an inheritance of the ancient ritual. When the ancient Chinese worshiped ancestors and gods, they directly burned the sacrifice or certain plants in order to produce smoke thinking the smoke could be an access to the spirits. The practice has been evolved into the incense burning behavior we know today. For visualizing the invisible emotions, the portrait shows different color depth by the accumulation of smoke. It not only visualizes the spirits which people want to access to the gods but also gives back a concrete feedback for the devotional act.
One of the Chinese oriented culture is Chinese worshiping. Chinese people worships spirits of Gods and their ancestors and combines the worshiping into their daily life by setting up an altar at home . The custumal way of worshiping at home is placing a huge table of spirits’ graphic or model as altar and shrine. However due to the change of life style many people abandon this tradition because of decreasing living space in their own apartment, and it is causing the cultural inheritance disappearing.
In order to enhance the effect of smoke, there are two ways adopted. First, with specific ink printing the idol (ex: Sodium bicarbonate), the smoke will have stronger and better reaction. Second, by using the paper on which the smoke is hard to adhere, it will focus the smoke on the ink.