Maria Yoon is getting married for the 53rd time this Saturday, with the groom being Howard Chen (陳豪爾), an affluent Taiwanese man who died in June 2001.
Yoon arrived in Taiwan from New York on Tuesday and will be spending this week rehearsing and making preparations for a ghost wedding, which includes making pineapple cakes and trying to procure a live chicken.
Ghost marriages in Taiwan mostly involve men marrying female ghosts, since unmarried women are not included on a husband’s family registry and have no descendants to take care of her spirit in the afterlife. The woman’s family finds her a groom so her spirit can be at peace.
Photo courtesy of Maria Yoon
Held at Yunshan Temple (雲山巖) in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止) and conducted by a Taoist priest, the ceremonial rituals will be as authentic as possible — except for Chen, who is a figment of Yoon’s imagination because she wasn’t able to find a real dead person to marry.
Yoon, a first-generation Korean-American performance artist, is better known as Maria the Korean Bride.
In response to familial pressure to wed, Yoon donned her Korean wedding hanbok and spent nine years getting married to men, women, animals and inanimate objects in all 50 US states and two of its territories. Six years after her last wedding in New York, she hopes to close out the project in Asia through ghost marriages in Taiwan and China. Like her previous effort, she will be turning the experience into a documentary.
Photo courtesy of Maria Yoon
“After marrying in 50 states in America, I make a full circle marrying the ghosts in Asia where my entire family is from. It’s like the circle of life,” she says.
In addition to continuing the theme of exploring the institution of marriage and what it means in different cultures, Yoon was especially fascinated by the idea of caring for someone even after their death.
“By uniting the departed with someone as a couple, it brings comfort to the living,” she says. “I think that’s the core here. Love still matters after you’re dead.”
Photo courtesy of Maria Yoon
Attendees must RSVP through the event’s Facebook page, and Yoon is also looking for volunteers to serve as her family members.
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