HUFFINGTON POST
In many Eastern countries, paying respects to the dead with earthly gifts — like food and money — is not an uncommon practice. But in Taiwan, some have taken ancestor worship to sexier heights, as strippers pole dance and peel off their clothes for the benefit of the deceased.
According to an AFP report released Tuesday, pole dances and stripteases are commonly performed at religious festivals in some areas in Taiwan in order to “appease the wandering spirits.”
In some cases, women dressed in tiny miniskirts and revealing brassieres shimmy and shake on stage in front an audience of men, women and children.
However, though this may seem bizarre to some, it is neither a new nor terribly unorthodox practice — at least as far as Taiwan goes.
In 2011, anthropologist Marc L. Moskowitz featured this practice in a documentary entitled “Dancing for the Dead: Funeral Strippers in Taiwan.”
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