If we, the living, are under constant pressure to own the latest, trendiest, and the best of the best in gadgets and amenities, Chinese people are not about to let their loved ones in the afterlife be left out.

For this year's celebration of the Qingming Festival, China's traditional "tomb sweeping day", which is a day to remember family members who have passed on, offerings for the dead come in the form of goodies that are in step with market trends, or not even out in the market yet.

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Relatives are snatching up replicas of Apple's iPhone 6 as an offering to the dead. Apple is yet to sell the real units in the market but the dead will get a first crack at the smart phone by April 5, the day Qingming is celebrated this year.

The annual festival traditionally has living relatives showering the tombs of loved ones with gifts of paper money, precious items and food. These offerings are seen as a way to empower the dead with enough wealth to live by in the afterlife.

The Guangzhou Daily reports that there has been a growing trend toward offering luxury items to the dead. Beyond the burning of paper money as a symbolic offering, dead relatives may get, among other things, replicas of villas, sailboats, phones, computer gadgets and Maotai wine.

Shops offering these gifts have lined up an assortment of gifts that the living can afford to offer. Replicas are way cheaper than the actual items but still, one needs excess cash to buy the best items.

A luxury sports car made of paper, for instance, is seen being sold at US$ 14.17 (88 yuan) per piece. Store keepers would even brag that the cars on sale are of the latest model. You buy a fleet of paper replicas of the car model and you get a discount.

The current Apple iPhone 5s is no longer on sale, again even as a replica, because buyers know that it is about to be upstaged by the iPhone 6.

To date, suppliers are said to be working round the clock to meet the demand for replicas of flat-screen televisions and yachts.

Based on a survey of the China Consumer's Association, nearly 1,000 tons of paper products are burned during Tomb-Sweeping Day with the living spending nearly US$ 1.61 Billion (10 Trillion yuan) for the replicas in 2012.