In 2021, the movie "Entering the Mortician" was released, setting off a movie-watching frenzy. In order to survive, the protagonist of the film had to take over the job of the mortician, who was once afraid and taboo, and did not mention it.
However, as he learned more about the mortician, he fell in love with the job. For example, the Chinese girl Chen Yunqiu, she is a mortician and a brave person worthy of respect.
Yin and yang are wrong, and prejudice is the enemy
Chen Yunqiu was born in 1996 in Sichuan Province. People often say that Sichuan and Chongqing nourish people with water and soil, and there is no doubt that Chen Yunqiu is the best "work".
A small and cute baby face, a pair of round glasses. Chen Yunqiu, a cute little girl after 95, is the "little Lolita" that netizens like. However, her profession surprised everyone.
Chen Yunqiu is a body plastic surgeon, which is often referred to as the "mortician". After the deceased has left, the mortician dresses them and paints them appropriate makeup to help them walk the last journey of life with dignity.
This means that morticians need to come into direct contact with the corpse.
The mention of corpses and death is habitually avoided. Chen Yunqiu, a little girl who looks soft and weak, why did she choose such a "terrifying" career?
Becoming a mortician has always been Chen Yunqiu's dream. When she was a teenager, Chen Yunqiu once accidentally saw a TV show, and the protagonist of the program was the mortician.
Full of curiosity, Chen Yunqiu learned about the whole process of the work of the mortician, and a sense of reverence sprang up. In her view, the last journey of life should be decent and full of dignity.
Because of this, they need professionals to dispose of the remains for them, and the body cosmetic surgeon is such a professional.
At that moment, Chen Yunqiu's heart seemed to have a concern, as she said: "The responsibility and mission they shoulder is very important, and I have aspired to become a body plastic surgeon since then." ”
However, in the traditional family, in the inherent concept of life and death, Chen Yunqiu's choice is not understood.
After graduating from high school, Chen Yunqiu stubbornly filled her own volunteer for the funeral industry, and almost unexpectedly, she was opposed by everyone. The strongest opposition was Chen Yunqiu's parents.
In their view, girls should have a stable life, and the funeral industry is very obscure and heavy, and it does not meet their expectations. In order to change Chen Yunqiu's thoughts, her parents talked to her many times, but they all returned with disappointment.
In desperation, Chen Yunqiu's parents could only inform other relatives and friends about this matter and invite them to be "lobbyists" in an attempt to make Chen Yunqiu change her ambitions. At this time, Chen Yunqiu's mind had already been decided, and in the face of the repeated bombardment of the crowd, he was bored and helpless.
In order to seek purity, Chen Yunqiu ran away from home and came to the home of a distant sister. The parents knew that Chen Yunqiu had made up his mind, and he could only acquiesce.
In the end, under the unremitting efforts of Chen Yunqiu, she was admitted to the Beijing Vocational College of Social Management and studied modern funeral technology and management at the school.
At school, Chen Yunqiu met a like-minded classmate: Liu Sansan. Born in 1995, Liu Sansan is a boy and the same age as Chen Yunqiu.
Like Chen Yunqiu, Liu Sansan also inadvertently saw the relevant information of professional morticians on the Internet. He liked novelty and excitement, and he became extremely interested, so he entered the funeral industry despite the persuasion of his family.
Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan really stepped into this industry only to find that the profession of mortician was far from being as simple as they thought.
Respect and dignity
The work of the mortician is very hard, almost from morning to night. Chen Yunqiu usually gets up at five o'clock and arrives at work at six o'clock. She put on gloves and protective clothing as required and began her day's work.
To groom the deceased, the funeral home has a very strict process.
First, adhering to the concept that the dead are greater, before performing a series of operations, the mortician needs to respectfully "ask" the remains and bow deeply to them. Subsequently, Chen Yunqiu and others wiped the face of the deceased with water.
People usually stiffen their whole body after death, which brings great difficulties to the makeup and dressing process of staff. At this time, Chen Yunqiu and other morticians need to massage the deceased through professional techniques to help them relax their whole body.
At the request of the family, the mortician then dresses the deceased.
Subsequently, Chen Yunqiu began to make up for the deceased. In general, men and women deal differently. Morticians need to repair men's hair, shave off their beards and stay refreshed. Because women need makeup, the process is more cumbersome.
Chen Yunqiu took out a brush, dipped a small amount of special cosmetics, and applied foundation, blush and lipstick to the deceased. The person who was originally pale suddenly became full of life.
Dressed in delicate makeup, they never seemed to leave, just fell into a deep sleep and had a good dream.
After everything was ready, the body was about to be buried, and Chen Yunqiu and other morticians ushered in a farewell moment. They usually thank, love, apologize and say goodbye to the body.
Thank them for coming into this world, sympathize with their suffering, express their love, and offer their blessings to them. Because of this, every time she put on makeup for the deceased, Chen Yunqiu always carried full of love.
Bowing, dressing, putting on makeup... Perhaps in the eyes of the layman, the profession of mortician is very easy in addition to some horror, but this is not the case.
Since working, Chen Yunqiu has never had the opportunity to lie in bed again. The mortician needs to go out in the morning light and come to the funeral home early to communicate with the family. What kind of funerary products to choose and what kind of makeup you want to have need to discuss together.
At the same time, Chen Yunqiu also needed to go to the warehouse with other colleagues to move out the wreaths and other funerary items. Funeral goods are usually not light in weight, and for a soft and weak girl like Chen Yunqiu, carrying back and forth is a great challenge.
Generally speaking, the funeral master's prescribed time off work is 4 p.m., but Chen Yunqiu rarely has the opportunity to leave work on time. Life is impermanent, the deceased is dying suddenly, and Chen Yunqiu needs to be in place immediately and stick to his job.
Even if there is no emergency, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan still need to go to the warehouse to do the final inventory and prepare for the next day's work.
At the same time, the working environment of the morticians is not ideal. The restoration of the remains needs to be carried out indoors, and the mortician needs to wear thick protective clothing, but the protective clothing is poorly breathable, and Chen Yunqiu is already sweating as long as she moves slightly.
Chen Yunqiu used to prepare two sets of protective clothing at work. If one of the sets is soaked, it will be replaced by the next set immediately and will not affect the work.
A whole day's work, for Chen Yunqiu, is a double test of physical strength and energy. The disposal of each body requires two morticians.
One of them is responsible for the head, the other is responsible for the lower body, and the whole process does not allow a trace of slackness. Chen Yunqiu and her colleagues turned over for the burly man, which was also very difficult.
Chen Yunqiu once did statistics, since becoming a mortician, she has handled about 1,000 corpses, and every year she is responsible for sorting out the groomed corpses, about 400.
For morticians, restoration technology is also a very high threshold. For some people who die unexpectedly, the mortician needs to return all parts of the body to their original positions according to the requirements of the family.
Liu Sansan once helped an old man with a detached head and a broken skull to repair his body, and he spliced the broken bones little by little, and the skin was re-stitched together. To complete this work, Liu Sansan spent more than 10 hours.
It takes care and patience to repair the remains, and during the long period of restoration, the mortuary needs to be at the operating table at all times. Because of this, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan are plagued by cervical spondylosis and lumbar spondylosis.
Liu Sansan said to people: "So do our line, the figure can not be too tall, like me short is an advantage, the degree of soreness of bending down is relatively light." ”
At the same time, there are still many taboos in the profession of morticians. The mortician never touches the body of the deceased, one for his own health and the other for the sake of the deceased.
After the death of the deceased, a large number of bacteria will be attached to the surface of the body, avoiding direct contact, which can effectively prevent the occurrence of disease. At the same time, not touching the body avoids damage to the body and is also the greatest respect for the deceased.
After becoming morticians, they also need to deal with various unexpected situations. Some of the deceased die in their homes and need to be serviced by a mortician.
Liu Sansan once "received" an incontinent old man, and after he came to the designated place, the old man still had some excrement that had not been treated. The family was embarrassed, Liu Sansan took the initiative to come forward, help the old man clean up, and then dress him with clothes and makeup.
It is often said that the mortician is a dirty and tiring job. They have little time to rest and need to face the corpses directly, including blood, excrement and other unexpected things.
However, the morticians all have a high professional ethic, never afraid of suffering, and never shout tired. Looking at the professional methods of the morticians and the attitude of hard work and resentment, the hearts of the family members are also very emotional.
Initially becoming a mortician, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan would also be afraid in the face of a pale and even broken body. However, as more and more bodies are handled, they gradually adapt to the rhythm of their work.
In the process of "getting along" with the remains, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan also had great changes.
In Liu Sansan's view, what lies on the hospital bed has never been a cold corpse, but his own relatives. Before dressing the corpse, he would always gently remind, Grandma, we are going to turn you over, and we will have new clothes to wear in a moment.
Of course, the greetings and comfort of the mortician will never be answered. Despite this, Liu Sansan and others still insisted. In their view, this is a respect for the dead and a reverence for life.
"Talking to life and accompanying them through the last journey of life" is one of the few things they can do for the deceased for the morticians.
In the eyes of others, the mortician was obscure and unlucky, but in Chen Yunqiu's eyes, this was a valuable job.
Chen Yunqiu has taken over many bodies in her career, and they have different identities and ages, and Chen Yunqiu's most impressive is several people's policemen.
In 2019, 3 police officers were involved in a car accident while on duty, and the remains were distorted and deformed. When they were first buried, the funeral home only sorted them out slightly, and many details were not resolved.
However, in the eyes of the policemen's families, their relatives were killed in the line of duty, heroes who served the people, and should leave beautifully and decently. Yes, the family members found Chen Yunqiu and hoped to see the remains intact.
Seeing the body of the policeman, Chen Yunqiu couldn't help but be awe-inspired. She made up her mind that she must maintain their best appearance, live up to their sacrifices, and meet the expectations of her families.
In the end, Chen Yunqiu did organ shaping for the police. The traffic policeman's ears disappeared in the car accident, and Chen Yunqiu re-pinched one according to the original appearance, replenishing the mutilated body. Subsequently, she made up special makeup for the police.
At the moment of seeing the complete and peaceful body, the family members could not help but burst into tears, and the old man repeatedly muttered: "This is my son, he is just asleep." The policemen who accompanied the old man saw their comrades-in-arms and thanked Chen Yunqiu one after another.
They stood neatly in a row and solemnly saluted the sacrificed comrades-in-arms, at that time, Chen Yunqiu suddenly felt extremely shocked, and she was also a participant in the process.
"I feel like everything I've done is worth it," Ms. Chen said. Relying on one's own ability to retain some memories and give people stability and hope is a great thing.
Every time the restoration of the remains was completed, looking at the happy faces of the family members and listening to their words of thanks, Chen Yunqiu was full of motivation.
Soul Loner
For the deceased and their families, the mortician is sacred, but in the eyes of others, the mortician is a "taboo" that they keep silent.
As morticians, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan both kept various rules in mind when acting. They never attended a friend's wedding, nor did they shake hands with anyone, and when asked about their work, they said it was the civil affairs department.
In fact, with the change of people's thinking, people's evaluation of the profession of mortician has become more relaxed. In the eyes of some young friends, Chen Yunqiu's work is not stolen or robbed, and there is no need to be jealous.
Therefore, when inviting everyone to the wedding, young friends never avoided Chen Yunqiu. However, in the eyes of the older generation, the profession of a mortician is ultimately difficult to accept.
Over time, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan became self-aware. Even when they received a wedding invitation, they refused it on the grounds that they were busy at work.
As Chen Yunqiu said: "I don't want a wedding to be unpleasant because of the results of our participation." If you want to celebrate, you can have a meal together. ”
After becoming morticians, Chen Yunqiu and Liu Sansan gradually drifted away from their former friends, and NaiheQiao and Meng Po Tang were destined to need them to break through alone.
Chen Yunqiu's reluctance to shake hands with people stems from people's prejudices against corpses. In the eyes of others, the corpse always carries evil, and Chen Yunqiu's hand directly touching the corpse always gives people the illusion of uncleanness.
In fact, when working, Chen Yunqiu and others will wear gloves, wear protective clothing, and pay great attention to cleaning.
They never touch things directly inside the studio with their hands, and as soon as they leave their jobs, they immediately repeat and disinfect their hands.
The morticians themselves never cared about being "unclean," but they knew that the uninformed would mind. Instead of giving others a hard time, cut off this possibility yourself.
Therefore, in interpersonal communication, they never take the initiative to shake hands with others, and when they are separated, they never say goodbye to others.
Morticians cannot smile, cannot take the initiative to hand over their business cards, cannot say "hello" to visitors, and cannot take the initiative to disclose their profession. This is the protection of the mortician himself, but also the respect for others.
The job was not easy, but Chen Yunqiu showed high morale.
Chen Yunqiu said: "The remains are all a life in my eyes, a word of thanks from my family will make me full of strength, I will continue to do it, I am proud to be a body plastic surgeon." ”
With the change of people's thinking, the funeral industry is no longer a topic that people keep secret, and more and more people choose to respect the special profession of mortician.
They face life and death and dare to be the first. In the eyes of some people, the mortician is the one who should enjoy the praise the most by virtue of his own efforts. The social environment is becoming more tolerant, and the future prospects of entering the profession of mortician are still broad.
The morticians who silently insist on it are all brave people in life.
Resources
[1] World Expo, July 21, 2021, "Ferryman of Life and Death Bereavement Care: There is a Special Profession Called "Mortician""
[2] Guangming Network, April 5, 2021, "Post-95 Morticians: Handling 400 Bodies Per Year, Never Attending Weddings"
[3] The Paper, April 28, 2021, "Post-95 Female Morticians Dispose of 400 Bodies a Year: As Long as I Am Loyal to Myself, I Have No Regrets"