I found this book intriguing, not so much for the actual story, but for the descriptions of life and afterlife in colonial Malaysia. Though I had a major in Asian studies, in my life before becoming a nurse, I hadn't retained much about the beliefs of Chinese afterlife (at least in the time period of the novel. One of the more fascinating mentions in the author's afterward was that though the concept of a ghost bride, a living woman married to a man after his death, or a dead woman married, after death, to a deceased man, was familiar in areas once under Chinese jurisdiction, it was not known as a precious practice in mainland China. The author speculated that this might be because of the deemphasizing of religion and spiritual beliefs by Chinese governments since the fall of the emperor. I also found it interesting that it was recommended to me by a man, and when I commented on the romance aspect in the book, he hadn't even noticed it when reading.
tags: 2016-read, read-on-recommendation, thank-you-charleston-county-library, first-novel-or-book, taught-me-something, made-me-look-something-up
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