The Late-Night Joss Paper Stall in Flushing, New York: Driver Lao Wang's Ten-Year Persistence
03 Dec 2025
At 10 PM in Flushing, the neon lights on Main Street still flickered amid the traffic. Lao Wang parked his taxi at a familiar street corner, pulled a folding table from the trunk, and quickly arranged gold ingots and joss paper into neat piles. The five red characters "Lao Wang's Joss Paper Stall" on the plastic sign were slightly blurred by rainwater, and under it were three stacks of instruction manuals—the Chinese one had the neatest handwriting, while the English and Spanish versions, translated by community college students, had frayed edges.
This was Lao Wang's tenth year running the stall, and his fifteenth year as a taxi driver. Every day after dropping off his last passenger, he would stay here until 1 AM, rain or shine. "At first, it was just a favor," Lao Wang wiped the dust off the corner of the table and pointed to the immigrant apartment building across the street. "I always heard passengers complain that they wanted to burn joss paper for their families back home but couldn't find a place to buy it, and were afraid of getting caught if they shipped it." For his first stall, he bought ten stacks of joss paper from Chinatown, and unexpectedly sold them all by midnight. A Northeast Chinese young man who squatted in front of the stall crying made him turn this "side job" into an obsession.
It was a bitter winter five years ago. The young man huddled in a tattered down jacket, clutching his parents' medical records on his phone and squatting in front of the stall. "My mom has advanced lung cancer, and I can't even afford a plane ticket home. I don't even have a way to burn joss paper for her." Lao Wang looked at his red, frozen hands, took out a stack of joss paper printed with "Express Delivery" from under the table, and poured him a cup of hot water from his thermos: "Take it, burn it on your balcony tonight. Talk to your mom via video and tell her that the money from Lao Wang's stall is new notes from 'Heaven and Earth Bank'—she'll definitely receive it." He even stood beside the young man and chanted a few blessing words in his hometown dialect. When the young man left, he tried to give Lao Wang the only twenty dollars he had, but Lao Wang pushed it back firmly.
Half a year later, the young man came to thank him in a car, saying that both his parents had dreamed of "receiving new money from New York" before passing away. This incident inspired Lao Wang. He asked a printing shop to customize joss paper with "Cross-Ocean Express Delivery" and printed simple worship guides, marking "Balcony Fire Prevention Tips" and "Video Worship Scripts". Slowly, his stall became a "spiritual post" for Flushing's new immigrants: a Korean aunt came to buy joss paper printed with Korean blessings, a Mexican uncle would bring a jar of homemade chili sauce to exchange for two stacks of paper money, and even the community pastor came to ask, "Which type of paper is suitable for praying for ancestors far away?"
Last winter, Lao Wang met a newly arrived international student at his stall. She dragged her suitcase and came to buy joss paper, saying her grandfather had passed away while she was on the plane. Looking at the child's confused face, Lao Wang suddenly realized that selling paper alone was not enough. He contacted the community service center and launched the "Community Mutual Aid Joss Paper Package"—the package was printed with "One Person Worships, All Help" and for every package sold, 10% was donated to the New Immigrant Assistance Fund, used to buy plane tickets home for needy immigrants and cover medical expenses.
In addition to joss paper and multilingual instruction manuals, the package also included a pink mutual aid card printed with contact information for community lawyers and translation volunteers. "A fellow villager from Fujian used the fund to cover his father's surgery costs," Lao Wang pulled out a group photo on his phone, in which the fellow villager was smiling and holding the mutual aid card. "He comes to help me run the stall every week now, saying he wants to pass on this kindness." Now on the small blackboard in front of the stall, besides "Joss Paper $5/Stack", there is an extra line of small characters: "Those in need of emergency return home can receive a mutual aid package with proof."
At 12:30 AM, the last customer was a restaurant server who had just finished her night shift. She bought two stacks of joss paper to send to her grandmother in China. Lao Wang gave her a small bag of gold ingots as an extra: "Qingming is next week. When you burn them, chant a few more words and tell her Lao Wang from New York sends his regards." After the customer left, he sorted out the day's revenue and set aside a stack of change—this was today's donation, which he would personally deliver to the community center tomorrow.
The street lamp stretched Lao Wang's shadow long. When he was packing up the stall, he found a can of hot coffee on the corner of the table, sent by the landlady of the convenience store next door. Over ten years, the stall on this street corner had changed tablecloths three times and printed five versions of instruction manuals, but it had always guarded the concerns of these overseas wanderers. When Lao Wang started the car, the stall in the rearview mirror gradually shrank. He thought of the dream the Northeast young man had mentioned, and suddenly realized that these stacks of joss paper were never just paper—they were letters home written by people drifting in a foreign land.
Perhaps it's just like the sentence printed on the mutual aid package: "Cross-ocean thoughts have no weight, and mutual aid warmth has no borders." Lao Wang's late-night stall has never sold joss paper—it sells the nostalgia that every wanderer can place, and the most genuine mutual support between strangers.
Interactive Topic: How have you or someone you know expressed longing for family abroad? Burning paper, writing letters, or other special ways? Share below
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