preface
If death is the most feared thing for everyone, then the professional work related to death is also spurned and feared, some time ago in a Japanese movie "Entering the Mortician", the protagonist is an unemployed cellist who helplessly engaged in the profession of a high-paid mortician, and realized the true meaning of life when sorting out the remains of the deceased again and again, and finally fell in love with this job.
It can be said that the mortician is the bridge connecting the living and the deceased, as the mortician they are highly responsible and cautious, and they also have gentle feelings for the deceased, they restore the undead state for the deceased, organize the face and body, and each step must be very meticulous.
People often say that even if you give me a million to do this line of work, I am not happy, so why would anyone still do this job?
Mortician
Morticians, also known as funeral rites, have a variety of funeral rites and special treatment methods for the deceased in many historical cultures, mainly in order to better preserve the remains, such as china's ancient preservation of the remains will be infused with mercury, ancient Egyptians will wrap the body into a mulai.
In our culture, we pay great attention to the aftermath of the deceased, and people believe that people will also go to Elysium after death, so before going to Elysium, they must dress up the deceased person well, send him on the last journey, show respect, which is also the birth of the mortician.
The work of the mortician is first to clean the body with sterilization soap, then to massage the stiff body, then drain the blood and gas of the deceased, inject antiseptics that have been detoxified, and then carry out facial finishing, which also includes fixing the face of the deceased with a metal wire, and then sealing the mouth with glue.
Stills from "The Mortician"
Seemingly "simple" work is actually not easy, in the work of the mortician will be exposed to toxic chemicals, but also may be infected with diseases when cleaning up the body, in addition to the mortician salary is not high, the average salary is about 3000-4000, the most important point is that after engaging in the work of the mortician, it will have a certain negative impact on their own social and life, such as the mortician can not participate in the marriage and birthday banquet of relatives and friends; can not take the initiative to inform others of their own profession; can not take the initiative to shake hands with others No greetings such as "Hello, goodbye" can be said to visitors.
In this way, it seems that the profession of mortician is not a good job in terms of salary and interpersonal skills, so why would anyone still do this job?
Here I would like to introduce you to a character, he is China's first-class anti-embalming and cosmetic makeup artist, the Ministry of Civil Affairs protective plastic surgery skills master Xu Kangfei.
Xu Kangfei
You may be very unfamiliar with these professional names, both of which are the highest awards and honors awarded by the state to the funeral industry.
Xu Kangfei joined the army as a soldier from the age of 18, and during his service, he also participated in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, won the third class merit during the battle, and was elected as a representative of the fourteenth army.
After retiring in 1985, Xu Kangfei came to the funeral home in Hangzhou and slowly became an ordinary mortician with his own efforts to become a national master.
On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck near The Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, with a focal depth of 10 kilometers, killing 222,500 people and injuring 196,000 as of January 26, 2010.
Among them, 8 Chinese police officers who were on peacekeeping missions in Haiti were killed, and Then Xu Kangfei was tasked by his superiors to embalm and bury the remains of the martyrs.
Xu Kangfei immediately flew a plane, and after a 19-hour flight, arrived at the Airport of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
However, due to the magnitude of the casualties in the earthquake, Xu Kangfei's plane could only stay at the airport for two hours, which may be the most tense and unforgettable two hours in Xu Kangfei's life, because he needed to embalm and sort out the remains of 8 martyrs within two hours.
As mentioned earlier, the work of the mortician is seemingly simple but very tedious, which is a great challenge for any mortician, but Xu Kangfei did it in two hours.
Xu Kangfei used the self-created aortic arch anti-embalming method to quickly embalm the remains of the martyrs, and then used his high-than-hard plastic surgery skills to restore the highly decayed remains of the martyrs as before, and after completing it, Xu Kangfei's hanging heart finally let go, which was not only to complete his own work content, but also to complete the country's tasks and the expectations of the martyrs' families.
Compared with the emergency and tragic earthquake in Haiti, the Wenzhou EMU incident in 2011 is more admirable for the morticians.
On July 23, 2011, a rear-end collision occurred between a train from Beijing to Fuzhou and a train from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, killing 40 people, including their bodies in tatters.
When Xu Kangfei rushed to the scene of the past, a young man was very emotional, and his wife and unborn child were killed in this accident, and the young man was very excited, saying that he must restore the body before he was willing to accept the cremation of his family.
Xu Kangfei agreed to him, knowing that the young man's mood seemed to be a little better after Xu Kangfei agreed, but Xu Kangfei knew that this work was very difficult, and the face of his injured wife was very badly damaged, and he could not see the appearance at all, let alone restore it. But Xu Kangfei had been working as a mortician for too long, and he knew that he was the young man's last hope, so he tried his best, and he carefully copied the appearance of the former wife's life while sketching with a pen.
Finally, the head and facial features of the young man's wife were copied out, and when the young man saw the body, he began to cry silently.
Xu Kangfei knew that the young man was making a final farewell to his wife.
Xu Kangfei in the Wenchuan earthquake and Yushu earthquake are doing their own work in obscurity, although they may be disapproved by their families and friends, but Xu Kangfei still loves this job and pays for it.
Not only Xu Kangfei, but also many similar morticians in China, who do their jobs in obscurity and never ask for anything in return.
On August 12, 2015, a major safety incident occurred in Tianjin, and a fire explosion occurred in a company's dangerous goods warehouse, which lasted for 42 hours.
Of these, 165 people were killed, 798 injured and 7,533 containers were damaged.
Among the victims were many firefighters and public security police, and one of them, a 19-year-old firefighter, burned only 3 bones after the fire ended.
What a heavy blow to the families of the firefighters, the 19-year-old Flower Season was buried in the fire, and the families could only cry and cry...
At this time, the mortician Wang Gang came to the scene of the incident with his team, and when he saw the 3 bones, he was silent for a long time.
He wanted to restore the firefighter's remains, not only to give him an account of his own work, but also to give his family, who were immersed in grief, a last chance to say goodbye.
In this way, Wang began to restore the remains of the work, the work lasted for more than ten hours, Wang Gang did not even shed a drop of sweat, no matter how noisy and noisy it was next to him, he ignored it, as if at this moment there was only this 19-year-old fire fighter in his world, and all he had to do was to show the most spirited appearance of this soldier to his comrades-in-arms and the family who raised him.
In the end, Wang Gang completed the restoration of the remains of this fire fighter, and he could perfectly reproduce a small pimple on the face of this fire fighter.
Wang Gang
At the funeral, the comrades who fought alongside the fire fighters were in tears when they saw the remains, and the family members were in tears, saying goodbye to the 19-year-old fire fighter in their hearts.
In 2016, Wang Gang also led his team to set up a 3D body printing restoration studio, which can highly restore the face of the deceased through three-dimensional modeling and wound scanning, and the similarity can reach more than 95%, and the time taken is only two days.
3D body printing
This technology may seem to us to be very "useless", but for the families of the deceased, it is a gift from Heaven, as if the relatives are still alive and accompanied, which is a great comfort.
The morticians mentioned above are all men, in fact, there are many female morticians in China, such as Li Shuping, a post-90s mortician.
Li Shuping is only 27 years old, but has been working at the Changzhou Funeral Home for nearly 6 years, and is also the only post-90s mortician in the museum.
Li Shuping said in an interview that although everyone does not approve of her own career in this industry, she chose to major in anti-corrosion and plastic surgery in college, and it is also the most rare body of unnatural death, including damaged remains caused by car accidents, fires, suicides and other behaviors.
Li Shuping
In the interview, Li Shuping revealed her love for the job of the mortician, and she also said that there was a particularly deep memory at work, when the deceased experienced a car accident, resulting in a large depression in the face, the appearance of the face could not be seen, the family of the deceased cried very sadly, and the mouth still said that this morning was still good, how is it incomplete now...
This made Li Shuping and the other morticians feel very unhappy, and then they decided to try their best.
According to the photos of the deceased person before his death, several colleagues worked together to repair and reshape the skin of the deceased, although it still looks a little different from the previous life, but at least the face looks clean.
At the end of the work, the families of the deceased came up to thank Li Shuping and the other morticians, and at that time Li Shuping thought that the work she had done was very sacred, at least to participate in the last moment of the deceased's life and help them complete the regrets in their hearts.
epilogue
There is a line in "The Mortician" that "Death is like a door, but it does not mean the end, just entering another world, and the mortician is the gatekeeper, saying to them all the way good, goodbye in the next life".
In today's society, the prejudice against morticians is still too big, in my opinion, in fact, the current morticians are like firefighters in fires, police officers who catch criminals, and doctors who save lives.
Morticians have always paid in obscurity, and they look as insignificant as dust in this world, but they are the link between the living and the dead.
If doctors and nurses are racing against time to save countless lives, then the morticians are guarding the dead and fulfilling the salvation and wishes of the dead.
Everyone avoids this industry, there are very few married and children in the mortician, even if there is a partner, the unhappiness encountered in the work can not communicate with the partner Qin, it can be said that the mortician is to devote himself to this worker, to complete our needs, that is, to see the last side of the deceased.
Even if everyone avoids the industry, don't we still have to face death in the end?
And we all need a mortician at the end to sort out the remains for us, to leave the last beautiful image of the living.
Death is terrible indeed, but we should all have the courage to look at the word and its consequences, just as the morticians are inexplicably oppressive and fearful to us, but we should also have the courage to accept them.
In the eyes of the mortician, the deceased needs to be spiritually redeemed, while the living need to be spiritually comforted, so have you ever thought about what you need to be a mortician?
I think maybe it's just a thank you or maybe it's a recognition and gratitude for his job.
It seems to me that both life and death are sacred, and the work of doctors and morticians is equally noble and pure.
Only one is to greet and save the living, and the other is to redeem and comfort the dead.
Finally, I would like to say that only those who can face death calmly in the midst of enlightenment can engage in the job of mortician, because only by seeing death will they change their perception of life and cherish their lives more.
I hope that everyone can cherish life, support and understand the people around them, and also hope that everyone can have a deeper understanding of the work of the mortician, and respect and understand it.