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The Ghost Bride – The Book and the Real Ghost Marriage Behind it

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Ghost Marriage is not something we only read about in fictional books and watch in horror movies. Sometimes the fiction is inspired by the truth, like with the Malaysian book, The Ghost Bride from 2013.

Malaysian author Yangsze Choo (朱洋熹) heard many types of lore, legends and myths when she was growing up in Malaysia. Being a fourth generation Chinese Malaysian, many of the stories she heard were rooted in Chinese tradition. “As a kid, you’d sometimes hear, ‘So-and-so got married to a ghost or to a dead man.’ And that always really sparked my interest,” she told InsideEdition.com once.

And when she wrote her book, The Ghost Bride, she wrote a fictionalized version of a real thing based on the stories she heard about Ghost Marriages. The book was published in 2013, but painted a story from a very different time. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Malaysia

The book The Ghost Bride is set in 1890s Colonial Malacca, a Malaysian Chinese woman accepts a marriage proposal from a wealthy family to be the “ghost bride” to their deceased son who died a mysterious death to save her family from going bankrupt. Desperate to escape the situation, she needs to battle both the dangers of real life as well as the dangers of the afterlife and the hauntings of the dead. 

Her book was a great success and even got its own Netflix TV-series adaptation. Although The Ghost Bride is a fictional story, the concept of Ghost Marriage is anything but.

Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn in Chinese Culture

The tradition of Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn 冥婚 is an ancient Chinese custom in China and among Chinese communities abroad, representing deep cultural beliefs surrounding death and the afterlife. In this unique ritual, the family of the deceased takes on the responsibility of arranging a marriage for their loved one who has passed away, ensuring that the bond continues even beyond the grave. This practice is believed to provide comfort and peace to the deceased, allowing them companionship in the afterlife, as it is thought that they will not be lonely without a spouse.

In more extreme cases, there is a living person that are to be married to a dead one. This happened more when parents had this choice or to send their children to brothels or servants. “In many ways, it is a choice between two evils. Never an easy choice,” Choo said.

Although Ghost Marriage is fairly uncommon, but these poignant ceremonies are still very much alive today, with families sometimes going to great lengths to conduct elaborate rituals and find suitable partners for their deceased relatives, demonstrating the enduring significance of family ties and filial piety even after death.

Read Also: Ghost Marriage — The Chinese Way to Marry the Dead

The Ghost Bride took three years to write and a lot of things inspired what would eventually be her book. When she researched for it she remembered all of these stories she had heard about and read in the papers. She also learned that her friend’s family had been involved with a Ghost Marriage many years ago in the 90s or early 00s. 

The Wedding of the Dead that Inspired the Ghost Bride Book

The Ghost Bride: The cover of the book that Yangsze Choo was inspired to write after the old tradition.// Photo

One night, Yangsze Choo’s friend’s grandmother woke up from a dream. She said to the family the next day that it was her son who had visited and told her that he had met a girl in the underworld and wished to marry. 

Her son gave his mother the girl’s name and address to her family so that the grandmother could go see for herself. So the grandmother went to the address she had gotten in her dream and according to the story, actually found the family. 

Read More: Check out the book The Ghost Bride

When she talked to the mother of the girl who had died, it turned out that she had the same dreams as the grandmother had. She had been visited by her dead daughter in the dream and said that she too wished to get married. 

The two families got together and held a wedding for their belated children. Just like they would have if they were alive they had a ceremony with Chinese bridal sedan chairs as well as a feast after they had taken their vows and they got their soul tablets. 

After the wedding the two families were joined and worked as any extended family would, joining them for large family happenings. 

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Featured Image: Netflix ‘The Ghost Bride’ (2020)

What Is a Ghost Marriage? The Real Story Behind the Unusual Practice in New Netflix Show ‘The Ghost ‘ | Inside Edition

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A Haunting in Malaysia — Kinarut Mansion

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Malayan ghost lore is deep and it is ancient. And something leaves more questions than answers. Such is the case of the mysterious Kinarut mansion in Sabah and what became of it. 

The ruins of a former manor house sits on a hill surrounded by woods. It looks over the Kawang River near Kinarut in Malaysia. Today, the ruins of the manor house is considered to be the Malaysian state, Sabah’s, main attraction. And it is apparently not only the living it attracts.

The Mansion in the Jungle

Once this area of Malaysia used to be called North Borneo, a British protectorate where Europeans came to get their hands on natural resources of the land, like rubber. And in 1910, a German manager of a rubber plantation called Kinarut Rubber Estate built a manor in Graeco-Roman style, pretty unique as the one of the very few stone houses in North Borneo. 

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It was an Indian architect that stood for the design, and the construction was massiv. Around 200-300 workers from Java and maybe even Hong Kong worked on the house for four years to complete it with 152 windows, 45 doors and no less than 42 huge chandeliers. 

Asimont died only a decade after the building was done and the manor itself was destroyed in 1923 by a British company. The question of why though, is still unanswered. What happened to the house? Or based on the stories that have been told ever since, what happened in the house to leave such a legend?

The Fall of The Kinarut Mansion

In its prime, there seemed to have been a bustling life with a full community, jobs and even cultural events like sports competitions. The mansion was well maintained and the rubber plantation seemed to be thriving until the Great Depression. But that hit the global market first after the mansion was supposedly demolished. So again, what happened?

In the Jungle: There is according to legend, something in the trees surrounding the mansion.
Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas

A house such as this is simply not complete without the haunted backstory. Locals living near the mansion reports that the area is haunted by a “Hantu Tinggi”, a type of Malayan ghost, usually disguised as a tree in a forest. It literally means tall ghost as stories of it often tell about a body so tall the waist up is hidden by clouds. and only exists in Western and Eastern regions of Malaysia. 

The Rediscovery of the Haunted Mansion

Years went by without anybody paying the ruins any mind. The locals had only tales of demons and ghosts from this place. The rubber trade had dried up and North Borneo was now the modern Malaysia on the map of today. But the house would not be forgotten by history, not just yet. 

The rediscovering of the house was made in 1990 when the Sabah Forestry Development Authority led an exploration of where to plant trees. Throughout the years it had been forgotten and rarely does people wander in this area. Why is that?

People passing by claim that they have seen something fast moving and voices in the night. This is mostly attributed to a pontianak, a Malayan female ghost that prays on human flesh. So perhaps this wasn’t the greatest place to erect a mansion at all. All that is left of the enormous building are ruins. The steps of white stone leading nowhere as the questions asked about the truth about the Kinarut Mansion.  

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Feature Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas

 Rumah ‘hantu tinggi’ bongkar sejarah industri getah Sabah

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Kinarut_Sabah_TheKinarutMansion-12.jpg

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Agnes Keith and the Ghost in her House

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From a house that has seen it all, this American author wrote about the ghost that lived with them. 

“I don’t believe in ghosts. But every day, I see a tall gaunt woman telling her husband goodbye, taking her baby, and walking down the path alone, standing at the bottom of the path and looking back,”

White Man Returns, Agnes Keith
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This is a quote from American author and journalist Agnes Keith’s novel, “White Man Returns” from 1951, a novel she wrote about returning to her beloved house after being imprisoned by Japanese during the war. 

Among the detailing of her everyday life in Malaysia and in that house, snippets of a darker corner of the house take shape. And often, the ghost that resides in the Newlands House is what remains to this day. Especially when the museum itself wants to focus on the dark tourism aspect of it all. 

The Land Below The Wind

Agnes Keith was living with her husband and her son in Sandakan in what we now know as Malaysia. She came to this place in 1934 and found a new place to call home. Being under the British Crown at the time, they lived in the colonial-styled architectured house with their servant. She was writing books like “Land Below The Wind” in 1939 about their life in the then called British North Borneo, which is was then called, with her husband working as a Conservator of Forest. 

The house: Newlands, the home of Agnes Newton Keith in Sandakan, Borneo from 2007.
Photo: Warren Apel

She loved their house and their home and was said to be very well liked by those around them. The house on the hill had a grand view of Sandakan Bay in the front and the Sulu sea from the back. But then the war came and it would be a long time until she would live in the house again. 

The Scar of the War

Like many Europeans on the island Agnes Keith and her family were put in internment camps when the Japanese invaded Borneo. The whole family survived though, and it is said that one of the Japanese camp commandants had read Agnes’s work and made sure to treat the family well. They stayed in the camp until the end of the war in 1945, but she was never the same again. 

“The story of war is always the story of hate; it makes no difference with whom one fights. The hate destroys you.”

Three Came Home, Agnes Keith
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When they returned to Sandakan in 1947, they found their beloved house destroyed. They decided to rebuild nearby, and named the house for Newlands, although it is more known as Agnes Keith House today. But the haunting memories from the war seemed to also manifest in the house as well. Through her writing, she notes about the paranormal activity going on around her. 

They left North Borneo for good in 1952 when she moved to Canada and the house passed to someone else. But the legends about the hauntings didn’t stop with the highly imaginative writer.

The Woman by the bed

G.L Carlson took over the husband’s position as a forest conservator after the Keiths left for Canada. His wife, Rosemary also told stories about apparitions in the bedroom when her husband was away. She woke at dawn and heard the door to the room open and close several times. When she opened her eyes, there was someone there, staring at her. 

“There was a figure standing, leaning over, and looking down at me. The figure appeared to be a female with a white bandage around her head. She was pale faced. She was dressed in what looked like a white, short-sleeved T-shirt or blouse with a wide-shoulder-strapped, dark-coloured pinafore dress. (…) She was quite a short person of normal build, and I could not see the lower part of her body. At this stage, I must have passed out. When I came to, it was already dawn and I was alone.”  

– Rosemary Carlson

The Ghost Resident

Maids, visitors and security guards can tell the same story about a woman shoving up in the stairs or in the corner of the rooms in the house. Places where she doesn’t belong. Or perhaps she belongs there more than anyone else at this point? 

By now the Agnes Keith house has fallen into the hands of the Sabah Museum Department and restored to become a public museum, to keep the house intact as well as the lingering residents that may still be there. 

  

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Agnes Keith: the American author who loved Sabah | Free Malaysia Today (FMT)

Spooktacular Sabah: Agnes Keith House first stop in state’s haunt jaunt push | Malaysia | The Vibes

https://web.archive.org/web/20190614110302/https://www.thepatriots.asia/misteri-kisah-seram-rumah-agam-agnes-keith-sandakan/