THE GHOST BRIDE “My name is Yang, but call me Joe.” “Hi, Yang-Joe. What do you have for Ghost Radio today?” “Well, I know some people.” “And which people would those be?” “Not, you know, good people. They’re people who trade with the dead.” “What do you mean, trade with the dead?” “I mean that they, um, provide some special needs for some dead people.” “Yang, or Joe, you lost me there. What needs? What are you talking about?” “See, in western China, in the Shaanxi province, there’s a very old custom that says when a young man dies unmarried, he should be buried with a bride, a dead bride. You’ve heard of it?” “Now we have,” said Joaquin. “So these people, they provide women…um…female corpses for ghost weddings.” “Uh-huh.” “When an unmarried woman dies at the same time as an unmarried man, they speak to her family, offer them a small sum, and they bury the bodies together after a ceremony.” “And if there isn’t some conveniently dead woman?”
