No incense-offering ceremonies this year? Stay safe and do it online instead

Apart from reunion dinners, the exchanging of red packets and lo hei, participating in the annual Chinese New Year incense-offering ceremony at the famous Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple is an essential tradition for some.

Also known as tou xiang, the tradition involves devotees heading to the temple at midnight on the first day of the Lunar New Year to plant incense offerings.

Unfortunately, the situation this year will be quite different thanks to the pandemic. To prevent overcrowding and creating an unwanted cluster, the event that was supposed to occur on Feb 11 has been cancelled.

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However, with the use of technology, one temple, Heng San Tian Temple, has found a way to overcome this hurdle by creating a website, Let's Go Bai Bai, that allows you to offer your joss sticks to the deities online.

Online reservations for joss sticks are now open. Devotees should act fast though, as only 88 joss sticks are up for grabs. These will range from $88 to $1888 depending on how early you want your joss sticks to be up.

The joss sticks will then be placed at Heng San Tian temple when the clock strikes 12 on the first day of Chinese New Year and the ceremony will be livestreamed on the temple's Facebook page.

On top of this, all the proceeds from this event, organised by the temple and local advertising agency GOVT, will go directly to charity Beyond Social Services, which aims to help low income children and youth.

If you don't wish to offer joss sticks but still want to donate money or write down wishes and blessings for the temple, you can also do so on the Let's Go Bai Bai website.

This isn't the first time that they've conducted religious traditions digitally — Heng San Tian has regularly streams prayers on their Facebook page.

melissateo@asiaone.com