The Reluctant Whore

While China has been doing its best to put its best face forward as it prepares for the 2008 Olympics and also the World Expo in 2010 by shutting down restaurants that aren't up to scratch and by installing elaborate spitoons in cabs, those efforts were dealt a blow when it was revealed that several men have been killing women and selling their ghosts as ghost brides to ensure that dead single men have wives in the afterlife.

Yang Donghai, a 35-year-old farmer in western China's Shaanxi province admitted he killed a woman he had bought from her family. he paid 12,000 yuan for her but sold her ghost - to which he no doubt had immediate rights - for 16,000 yuan making a profit of 4,000 yuan. Gee, the profit seems a bit low for all the effort involved. It's only about $US2-300

Because what are the main elements here? Well, there's buying and selling people or, for want of a better word: "slavery" - that's slavery where the girl's own family sold her out, then you have murder of course, then the guy profited from murder and it was all for a dark, superstitious death ritual which only survived in the parts of China that are more or less badlands - ie. the parts of China where Communism started and where poverty reigns. Gosh, how surprising it's not already an official holiday destination.

So, maybe that takes China back to square one.