“One of my favourites is Hang Quat (or Celebrations) Street. This is a place where the people of Ha Noi have always shopped when they need the various bits and pieces for weddings, funerals, the mourning rituals that require families to get together monthly for a year after a loved-one dies, and. . . the things you need to send skyward so your ancestors don’t run short in the after-life!
You can buy fake money, paper models of cars, and whole suites of tiny furniture. And once you’ve paid over your (real) money, you can take everything to the nearby pagoda (or just the handy receptacles provided on the curb outside the shop), and send them up to the heavens with the strike of a match.”