The Ghost Bride

by Yangsze Choo

London, as the District Office once told our cook’s sister, was the center of the world. The heart of a great and glittering empire that stretched so far from east to west that the sun never set on it.

This practice of arranging the marriage of a dead person was uncommon, usually held in order to placate a spirit. A deceased concubine who had produced a son might be officially married to elevate her status to a wife. Or two lovers who died tragically might be united after death. That much I knew. But to marry the living to the dead was a rare and, indeed, dreadful occurrence.

if you didn’t care for love or children, it might not be so bad. You would be housed and clothed all the days of your life.”

the earliest Chinese who came to seek their fortunes brought no women. Some took Malay wives and the resulting mix of cultures was known as Peranakan.

Women had little security other than jewelry, so even the poorest among us sported gold chains, earrings, and rings as their insurance.

without such offerings, the dead were mere paupers in the afterworld, and without descendants or proper burial, they wandered unceasingly as hungry ghosts and were unable to be reborn.

Taking my silence as assent, he continued with his grotesque flirtation.

suspected that Amah felt bad about it. “Reading, reading!” she would grunt, and snatch away whatever book I had. “Spoil your eyes, you will!”

We Chinese did not like to give or receive certain gifts for superstitious reasons: knives, because they could sever a relationship; handkerchiefs, for they portended weeping; and clocks, as they were thought to measure out the days of your life.

The hours, days, and years that had bled away in his opium haze demanded a payment from my future. In his apathetic way he had squandered my chance at happiness.

In his apathetic way he had squandered my chance at happiness.

It seemed to me that in this confluence of cultures, we had acquired one another’s superstitions without necessarily any of their comforts.

I had known how easy it is to lose your life, I would have treasured mine better.”

The problem with the dead was that they all wanted someone to listen to them.