THE FRAGRANT CHINESE By Anthony Lawrence (Chinese University Press, $188) THE bride wore white, carried a red parasol - and was stone dead. She was a ghost, but her husband did not seem to mind. No, this is not a movie. This is real life, Hong Kong-style. Marriages of ghosts still occur in the territory, although they are much rarer than a few decades ago.
Weddings involving dead people (either the bride or the groom, or in some cases both), are curious affairs, but include many of the trimmings of weddings in which both parties are still warm and moving around. Guests bring presents, but all are made of paper, so they can be burnt and thus transported to the other life.
In a wedding where both participants have popped their clogs, friends and relatives escort the bride, resplendent in her off-the-shoulder coffin, to the cemetery where her gallant husband waits - six feet under the ground.
Why marry a dead person? Because a marriage ties two families together in a way that no other contract can.
This and several hundred other observations on Hong Kong life are contained in The Fragrant Chinese, a study of the people and culture of the territory by former BBC correspondent Anthony Lawrence.
Can a man in a profession known for its 40-second ''soundbites'' write a whole 233-page book? Yes, but it wasn't easy. Mr Lawrence writes in his preface: ''A radio and TV journalist trying to write a book is a piteous spectacle, like a man used to the 100 metres' dash facing a 10-mile marathon.'' But he is being modest. The strain doesn't show at all: he writes smoothly, in a simple style which is a pleasant surprise in a book with a university logo on the back.