Candy sticks that could make grandma really upset

Local gag gifts company, Mall 852, will sell incense stick candies as a Halloween-meets-Chung-Yeung-Festival product.

Incense sticks are burned as an offering for the deceased, and in popular folklore the dead are believed to literally "eat" the incense for sustenance (hence the punchline about candy being made for humans, not for spirits, in the promotional video above). The SCMP (subscription only) says making incense out of candy and selling it to kids for Halloween has not gone over well with local retailers. Many shops have failed to see the joke and refused to stock the candy sticks.

"It's time for us to put down our baggage; Chinese people are too afraid of death," Andrew Au Yeung Wing-kuen, director of A Local Company Limited, which developed the concept, told the SCMP.

The taboo-breaking set of candy includes mango-flavored incense sticks, strawberry-flavored candles, cookies made to resemble paper offerings and hell banknotes.

The candies will be on sale soon -- see Mall 852's website (Chinese only) for updates, or email info@mall852.com. Select Mall 852 products are available at shop 247, Sino Center, 582 Nathan Road, Mong Kok, Kowloon, tel +852 8228 1118.