Then & Now | Ghost marriages still alive in Hong Kong

Hong Kong society displays possibly the greatest survival of openly expressed animism within any post-industrial society. Widespread belief in the spirit world is substantiated by the enduring popularity of ghost stories, endlessly retailed urban myths about “haunted” places and the sheer variety of protective rituals designed to propitiate gods, ancestors and wandering spirits.

Much like any casual stranger encoun­tered in the wider world, a roving spirit’s general temperament may be malevolent or helpful. While most ghosts remain neutral and merely hover about, they could go either way, depending on how they feel themselves to be treated. This makes it vitally important to keep firmly on the ghost’s good side, when-ever possible.

To help ghosts have a fulfilled afterlife, “weddings” are sometimes arranged on behalf of an unmarried deceased relative by living family members. “Ghost mar­riages”, as these rituals are popularly known, still occur – and with far greater regularity than those who only see Hong Kong’s “cosmo­poli­tan, international” side might suspect. And “ghost marriages” do not only take place among Hong Kong society’s poorer or less educated members. Those influenced by Christian belief sys­tems, however, tend to disavow these trad­itional practices as primitive superstitions, which neatly side­steps the obvious fact: that an imported supernatural belief system has simply replaced an indigenous one.