Reporter | Cui Shuo
Edit | Meng Jiali
Picture | Wang Xiaodong, Luo Xianyang, Ma Yaogang
In July 2023, after graduating from Changsha Funeral College, Chen Xiran joined the funeral home where she had interned and became a wake watchman.
The person who holds the soul is responsible for all aspects of the process, from the wake to the cremation, including arranging for the transportation of the body, handling funeral supplies, and assisting the family with the formalities. Ensuring that the freezer is at the right temperature is a crucial task. After the deceased has been placed in the freezer, the wake is required to check the temperature every two hours. Such a wake usually takes 2 to 3 days.
Chen Xiran is no stranger to this, when she was a student, she had already interned in many departments such as embalming and grooming restoration. Changsha Funeral College has cooperative relations with funeral homes in many places, and students can basically learn and experience all positions in the funeral home from enrollment to graduation.
At present, there are only 8 high/secondary vocational colleges in the country that offer funeral majors. Changsha Funeral College, where Chen Xiran graduated, is affiliated to Changsha Civil Affairs Vocational and Technical College, which is the first school in the country to open a funeral major, and is also known as the "Whampoa Military Academy" in the funeral industry. In addition to the skills courses commonly used in the funeral industry, the school also sets up courses such as death psychology and cremation machine technology, which more systematically runs through the content related to the funeral industry.
But that was not the case 28 years ago. Xiong Ying, an associate professor at Changsha Civil Affairs Vocational and Technical College, remembers that when she first joined the school in 1996, she didn't know what a funeral major was. At that time, the curriculum was mainly calligraphy, funeral culture, and cremation oven courses, and there were no etiquette classes or flower arrangement classes. "At that time, everyone was crossing the river by feeling the stones, and they were constantly thinking about what classes to hold in the new semester and how to improve the talent training program."
At that time, many students did not know what major they were studying until the official start of classes. Xiong Ying remembers that among the more than 120 graduates in the first class, only about one-third of the students chose to work in funeral homes.
Changes in the funeral industry may have started in 2012. After the revision of the Regulations on the Administration of Funerals in 2012, the country's funeral reform has been rapidly promoted, and the reform content is mainly focused on changing burial to cremation, changing the way of coffin burial, and at the same time, the complicated traditional funeral customs have been greatly simplified.
Prior to this, funerals were usually presided over by prominent people in the family, and the demand for funeral services was not high, but after the reform, funeral homes took on most of the funerals, and the presiding and process guidance were also served by the staff of the funeral home. Therefore, the demand for a series of funeral services such as funeral master of ceremonies, body finishing and restoration has increased greatly.
According to the 2021 Statistical Communiqué on the Development of Civil Affairs issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, by the end of 2021, there were 4,373 funeral service institutions in the country, including 1,774 funeral homes and 815 funeral management institutions. As of press time, YiMagazine found on the "Qichacha" platform that the number of registered funeral-related enterprises in China was 162899, while in 2015, there were only 2,708 funeral service-related enterprises in China. In addition, according to the "Market Research and Investment Forecast Analysis Report of China's Funeral Service Industry" released by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the market size of China's funeral service industry in 2020 was 263.8 billion yuan, and it is expected that by 2026, the market size of China's funeral industry will reach 411.4 billion yuan. As a result of the ever-expanding demand in the industry, students are often "booked" by funeral homes around the country before they graduate.
Most of these sought-after students are post-90s and post-00s, and their growth is accompanied by the transformation of China's modern funeral industry. Different from the ignorance of students at the beginning of the establishment of the funeral profession, today's young people have a more comprehensive and objective understanding of the funeral industry, and they are often full of love for the industry.
Chen Xiran still remembers the reason why she applied for Changsha Funeral College 4 years ago, that is, she hopes to restore the deceased to the appearance before her death and give them the last dignity. In order to work in the funeral home, she searched for the majors and skills required for different jobs in the funeral home in advance, and finally chose Changsha Funeral College.
The funeral industry has been flooded with young people of all stripes, who have stood in front of "death" countless times and accompanied strangers through the last journey of their lives. What attracts them to stay in the industry? What do they bring to this traditional industry?
01
Why choose the funeral industry?
With no training from a professional college, Zhao Junze's experience comes almost entirely from daily practice. The 19-year-old has been engaged in funeral work for more than two years. He also didn't know why he was interested in this business, but in his memory, since he was in junior high school, when someone in the village "did white things", he liked to chat with feng shui masters and white affairs butlers, and would also help write elegiac couplets and paint various religious totems on coffins.
Until now, Zhao Junze's mobile phone has not been loaded with games, but it is full of pictures about funerals and folk knowledge. During his internship, he rotated through several positions, and he was most interested in the restoration of remains.
The skin color of the deceased will change somewhat after freezing, and there are also people who have suffered physical damage due to accidents, which need to be repaired. Zhao Junze felt that if he could use his own ability to help the deceased restore the appearance closest to the way he was alive, so that the deceased seemed to be just sleeping peacefully, it would be a comfort to the relatives and friends of the deceased.
However, the appearance of the remains is a job with a technical threshold, especially for young people like Zhao Junze who do not have the opportunity to enter professional colleges. The masters are reluctant to pass on their experience to others, but Zhao Junze will find opportunities to learn, and after he is busy with his work, he likes to stay at the door of the restoration room, see through the cracks in the door how the masters repair and stitch up the remains, and sometimes he will use his mobile phone to record it and take it home to observe and learn repeatedly.
Zhao Junze often makes some items that need to be used in funeral ceremonies, such as spirit flags.
Different from the usual makeup, the deceased generally needs to use loose powder and oil paint. When he was in school, Chen Xiran learned how to use oil paint to make 16 colors, which was a very high standard of requirements, which was higher than the requirements of the National Vocational Skills Competition at that time. But Zhao Junze is still not satisfied with the way he uses only oil paint. He observed that when the body was pushed out of the freezer and touched the air, small droplets of water would condense on the face, and if the oil paint was applied directly, the whole face would glow, "like a dummy". In order to paint a natural makeup look for the deceased, Cho Junze used his face to repeat the trial and error during his break, and finally found that the best effect was applied after mixing oil paint and foundation with olive oil in a certain proportion, "It looks natural without taking off makeup."
Some bodies need to be sutured and repaired, and there is no imitation of human tissue to practice, Zhao Junze practiced with pork, the epidermal texture of pork is close to human skin, Zhao Junze constantly used a knife to cut a hole in the pork and then stitched it, so he practiced this basic skill.
After 3 months of internship, he finally ushered in the first restoration of his own face, and later became someone else's teacher.
Unlike Zhao Junze, who was determined to enter the funeral industry very early, Cha Quanling, who has been working in the funeral industry for more than 6 years, did not build a deep understanding when she first chose this major, and her understanding of the industry was slowly accumulated in study and practice.
Cha Quanling is Chen Xiran's senior sister, who also graduated from the Funeral College of Changsha Civil Affairs Vocational and Technical College, majoring in modern funeral technology and management. In the 4 years of college, Cha Quanling interned in various cities, did cemetery management, cremation, body transportation, funeral services, etc., and also worked as an undertaker, "The study of this industry will make you grow a lot, and you can see many of the most essential things of humanity here."
Cha Quan Ling took over a 13-year-old girl in 2021 who fell into a river on her way home from school, and her death left her parents in great pain. After confirming that the body bag contained his daughter, the girl's father bought a new set of clothes and asked Cha Quan Ling to help her put them on. It was a white dress with cute patterns painted on it, socks were also white, and a pair of black leather shoes. Cha Quan Ling helped the girl wash her hair and coil it up, tied a pink headband, and put on a sparkling eyeshadow to make her look like a little girl who was about to participate in a show. When she pushed the girl out, the girl's father burst into tears and said to Cha Quanling, "My daughter has never worn makeup, this is her first time wearing makeup, and it is also the best looking." It is said that father's love is like a mountain, but what stood in front of Chaquan Ling at that moment was a powerless father.
After finishing the deceased's remains, Cha Quan Ling (left) cleans the workbench with her colleagues, which is a rare moment of relaxation in her day. (Photo: Courtesy of Cha Quan Ling)
02
The occupational norm in the funeral industry
Most people paid attention to the funeral industry from the movie "The Undertaker", which made many people who did not know the profession of mortuary have a professional filter for this job. When Cha Quanling watched "The Undertaker", she also thought that the daily life of the funeral staff was as relaxed and moisturized as in the movie, working during the day, partying with friends after work, and going to the hot springs in leisure, but in fact, on the first day of entering the job, she found that this job had nothing to do with "ease".
Cha Quan Ling began her first internship in her freshman year, which was a job of transporting dead bodies, taking the deceased from the hospital morgue or the place of death to the funeral home and storing them in cold storage. This is a job that needs to be on call, 24 hours a day, so Cha Quan Ling is often on night duty. "Normally, we will go out 5 to 7 times a day, and if it is a little more, it is possible to go to 145 or 6, as long as we need it, we must be the first to arrive." This means that even if he is on vacation, Chaquan Ling cannot go far away.
The first deceased person received by Cha Quan Ling was stored in the cold storage of the morgue for a long time, and because of his illness, only the skeleton with frost marks remained. Upon contact with the air, a layer of hoarfrost quickly formed on the surface of the remains. When preparing to carry it, Cha Quan Ling's gloves stuck to the skin of the deceased, and his hand almost slipped out of the gloves, and Cha Quan Ling, who already felt that his back was cold, trembled even more. But the busyness of work made her too late to sigh at the intersection of life and death, only 20 minutes later, she went to pick up the next body, because he had just died, the body still had residual warmth, "I have the impression that he is still hot, it feels very unreal, as if he has not died."
Some people wonder if Chaquan Ling will be afraid of dealing with different corpses every day. She herself had made such preparations, "thinking that it would be very uncomfortable, even nightmares". But in fact, when she came home exhausted, she didn't have time to recall her fears, "because of the heavy workload, I couldn't sleep at night." ”
In "The Undertaker", the faces of the deceased are all complete, but in real life, different ways of dying will cause the corpse to take on different states.
When Cha Quanling is doing the work of picking up and dropping the body, he often encounters the deceased in car accidents and falling from the building, and there are also corpses that have been drowned in the river for a long time, "Maybe his skull or brain marrow is already outside, and we need to pick up his mutilated limbs and body parts together."
Cha Quan Ling held the needle with a needle holder and used tweezers to hold the sutures, ready to suture the wound of the body. (Photo: Courtesy of Cha Quan Ling)
Recovering the mutilated corpse is the real test for the mortuary. On average, Zhao Junze has to process more than 600 corpses a year, and sometimes encounters corpses that have been dead for a long time before they are found. The carrion of such corpses often begins to grow maggots, and the bones are exposed after the skin has been corroded. Before applying makeup to the deceased, Zhao Junze needs to remove maggots, clean the body, and then wrap the deceased's skin with shaping clay or wax — the materials he will use with the family before repairing.
One of the most challenging experiences for him was last summer, when Zhao Junze received a call from a colleague to help pick up a body that had only been found 15 days after his death at home.
After arriving at the scene, Zhao Junze was first shocked by a strong smell of corpses, even if he was wearing protective clothing and a three-layer mask, he still couldn't stop it, "It's 10 times and 20 times the smell of pork, it's very unpleasant." The deceased died of a heart attack in his sleep, and when he was found, his body was already crawling with maggots, and his scalp was stuck to the pillow, "The moment the pillow was taken down, all our staff present were dumbfounded, a piece of scalp stuck to the pillow, and blood gushed out." "One didn't pay attention, Zhao Junze also stepped on maggots," similar to the feeling of bursting pulp, rattling and rattling. ”
After returning to the unit, Zhao Junze took a shower, continued to eat the remaining half of the takeout on the table, and then went to bed.
03
At that moment, I understood the meaning of this profession
When it comes to the funeral industry, most people's first impression is that there is more money and less work. However, several young people in the industry said that the "monthly salary of more than 10,000 yuan" spread on the Internet was exchanged for several months of lunch breaks during the epidemic, and a salary of 5,000 yuan to 7,000 yuan per month is the norm for this job.
"For myself, the amount of time and energy I put in is not proportional to my income." In the past 6 years in the industry, Cha Quanling only took 5 days off to travel to Guangdong with his sister a month ago, and has never been far away. But for Cha Quanling, the emotional and life experience gains brought to her by this job cannot be measured by money and time.
In May last year, Cha Quan Ling restored the remains of a man who died in a traffic accident. It was a scarred body that had been severely damaged by the rollover of the truck, cracking everything from the ribs to the hips, leaving the lungs exposed outside the chest, and the knee and calf bones of both legs shattered. The wife, who arrived at the scene, saw this scene and almost collapsed.
"I want to do my best to give her back a full husband's body." With this mission, Cha Quan Ling had more than 160 stitches and spent 5 hours. When she handed over the intact body to the deceased's wife, the other party did not speak for a long time, but just stroked the skin of her restored husband over and over again. Immediately, she knelt on the ground and said to Cha Quanling: "Thank you, the child is still young, if (the child's father) is blurred, I don't know how to face my child, how to tell him that this is Dad." ”
Early in her career, she felt that the job of an undertaker was to make the deceased leave with dignity, but as she helped more and more of the deceased and her family, she came to realize that it was equally important to give comfort to the living.
Cha Quan Ling once received a consultation from a follower who saw his mother's hands tremble before being pushed into the incinerator, and he couldn't let go for a long time after his mother's death, and always wondered if his mother was still alive at that time. Although from a rational point of view, she also knew that the hand tremors might be due to the residual information released by her mother's spinal nerves due to temperature changes, the thought of her mother was mixed with the guilt of not figuring it out because of hesitation at the time, and she was immersed in the repeated review of this scene in the days that followed.
In a reply to the other party, Cha Quanling wrote: "Maybe you see the hand, it means that she is secretly saying goodbye to you. Obviously, she couldn't bear to say goodbye to you, but she was misunderstood by you, how sad she was. "After years of working in the funeral industry, Cha Quanling feels that maybe everything can be analyzed objectively, but only death cannot, especially for the family members of the deceased, the moment they face the death of relatives and friends is the most vulnerable time." Come on, it is Auntie's greatest wish to see the world for her aunt and live well. These words untied the knot in the other party's heart for a long time, and after crying a lot, the other party wrote back that he was determined to cheer up and live well.
Sometimes, "I feel like it's my job healing my life," Cha Quan Ling sighed.
This feeling is also the professional experience of many young funeral practitioners. They themselves are just ordinary people in life, but because they are engaged in special positions and stand on the boundary between life and death, they are regarded as "special existences" at a certain moment, giving comfort to others at the same time, but also giving themselves the strength to live a good life.
Cemetery designer Zhu Lei has been in the industry for 6 years, and after graduating from the Department of Art and Design of Soochow University in 2015, he worked as an architectural designer for two years, and then chose to leave because he felt a lack of professional value. In 2017, Zhu Lei joined Hefei Dashu Mountain Cultural Cemetery as a cemetery designer. Dashu Mountain Cultural Cemetery is a new cemetery established in 2002, providing all kinds of customized services. Before joining, Zhu Lei did not know about tombstone design, but was attracted by the quiet and open garden-like natural environment of the cemetery. Without training in tombstone design, Zhu Lei had to start from scratch and learn the skills of carving, drawing, and stone treatment. But the real test is the communication with the customer.
After changing careers to become a cemetery designer, Zhu Lei found the value and meaning of design work.
In the first year of work, Zhu Lei received a grandmother who came alone, and she came to customize a tombstone for his deceased wife. According to the grandmother's description, her other half was a doctor before her death, and she dedicated almost her life to the medical career, always putting her work first, so she failed to take care of her body and eventually died of cancer. Grandma chatted with Zhu Lei for two or three hours, told a lot of stories about their youth, and brought him photos, "That photo was taken beautifully, and I can feel that their relationship is very good." In the end, Zhu Lei presented the photo of the two on the main monument in the form of carving, and at the same time engraved a stethoscope on the side of the tombstone, supplemented by the words "Benevolence of the Doctor".
When they saw the finished product, the old man was very excited. Although this acquaintance was only a few hours before and after, Zhu Lei was able to read a person's life from the other party's narrative, and the high-density amount of information also shortened the distance between him and the old man. Until now, he and the old man will still send text messages to each other during the New Year's holidays to express their condolences to each other.
"Many clients are often in a period of low mood when they come, and if I can bring some warmth to others through my work and make them feel kind, it will make me feel very valuable." Zhu Lei has designed more than 100 artistic tombstones so far, and there are many strangers in his friend list who have become acquainted with this job.
The cemetery designer will draw a sketch by hand after communicating with the customer, so that the other party can understand it intuitively.
There is such a line in the movie "Life Events": Life is a book, and there will always be a time when you turn to the last page, no one can always accompany you, but there will always be someone with you.
In May this year, Zhao Junze accompanied the 17-year-old boy on his last journey. The deceased died in a drunk driving crash at night, his father went to prison when he was young, his mother divorced, and the boy lived with his grandmother for the rest of his life.
The boy's friend swiped Zhao Junze's video through Douyin "Tongcheng", hoping that he could send the boy on his last journey. Because of his similar age and regretting his misfortune, Zhao Junze used his vacation time to repair the boy's body for free, and also presided over a memorial service for him.
It was an extremely deserted memorial service, looking at the empty house, Zhao Junze bought a pair of wreaths at his own expense, and also helped make paper ties, "You have to tie paper ties here in the north, and they don't have them at home, I said don't spend money, I can make it easily."
When he was eating, the boy's mother stuffed him with 200 yuan, and Zhao Junze quietly put the money on the table before leaving, and told her only when he got on the return car.
Engaged in the undertaker industry for many years, Zhao Junze's greatest wish is to be a funeral for the people, whether poor or rich, everyone deserves to leave with dignity, and every family should enjoy the right to say goodbye to the deceased.
04
Change is happening
It was a special memorial service, there was no solemn decoration, and the scene was dressed up in the style of an egg boy party, and it was the favorite game of the deceased 8-year-old boy before his death. Flower baskets and coffins are filled with skin stickers and dolls that boys like. There was no solemn mourning, and the child's favorite song was played live.
This is an atypical memorial service planned by the new funeral service company "Ferryman", replacing sadness with warmth and creating a final farewell for children and families.
There is an unwritten rule in the funeral industry: little ghosts are hard. Many companies are reluctant to accept young deceased, but the "ferryman" is not taboo about these, they are not taboo about age, they are not taboo about the cause of death.
In order to prepare for this memorial service, more than a dozen staff members worked day and night to prepare for this ceremony, and the time was urgent, only 50 hours before and after, "In the end, they may have slept for 3 hours at night, and they will come to help the children hold a memorial service the next day." Shi Hui, the founder of "Ferryman", recalled.
Shi Hui, the founder of "Ferryman".
At the end of the memorial service, the staff carefully put all the offerings in the coffin, layer by layer, and then spread flowers on the top layer, and finally sealed the coffin nailed. After the ceremony, the family expressed their gratitude to the ferryman, and Shi Hui felt that being able to bid farewell to the child and make his parents feel a little comforted was the biggest motivation for her to engage in this industry.
Compared with traditional funeral companies, Shi Hui feels that "Ferryman" is more like a creative planning company, which not only subverts many processes of traditional funeral, but also optimizes the problem of service supervision that is difficult to be unified in the previous funeral one-stop. In addition to the life service department, project planning department, IT technology development department, new media creativity department, etc., the company also has a process standards and quality inspection department, which lists every step of funeral services as a traceable goal.
In 2010, Shi Hui attended a funeral, which she remembers as a very hasty farewell, from the beginning to the time the body was pushed out of the hall, the whole process was only 10 minutes. Shi Hui felt stung, in her understanding, the funeral is the last goodbye to relatives, friends and deceased, and the last important ceremony in life, and the deceased should not be like a prop, with the passing scene like walking through the assembly line. Shi Hui wanted to do something different, so in 2017, "Ferryman" was established.
"This industry has a strong monopoly, and I couldn't get into it at the beginning." In the first two years of its establishment, the "ferryman" lost nearly 700,000 yuan per year. It is not until recent years that the personalized memorial service meets the current discussion of people's dignity of life and the higher requirements for funeral services, and the "ferryman" has gradually come into people's field of vision.
A funeral scene customized by the "ferryman".
Some subtle changes are quietly taking place in the funeral industry, and many traditional customs in the past are gradually being broken.
Taking the Dashu Mountain Cultural Cemetery as an example, it breaks the traditional form of tomb sweeping in the past of gongs, burning, and sacrifices, and provides a more beautiful environment and a more relaxed atmosphere, replacing paper money with flowers. Now, according to Zhu Lei, the burning of paper money can no longer be seen in the Dashu Mountain Cultural Cemetery.
Zhu Lei also felt the change in everyone's concept. Traditionally, tombstones are mostly black and cyan, but now he contacts customers who have a more diverse choice of tombstone colors, red, pink, white, and light gray are all popular.
In addition to the memorial service, the "ferryman" is also working hard to carry out a memorial service, and express the remembrance and thoughts of the deceased in the form of a party. This used to be unimaginable, but now it is becoming popular. In the past, only one or two memorial services were held a year, but now there is an average of 15 to 20 memorial services per year.
But the biggest challenge came from the venue. Most of the places where the memorial service is held are in the hotel, and when the application is used, when I hear that it is a memorial service, the hotel often refuses on the grounds that it wants to undertake the conference and wedding, in fact, I feel that the memorial service is "too unlucky". Even if the memorial service is held at the end, it is often necessary to make some compromises to the hotel, such as not placing roll-up banners in the lobby, and sometimes even being temporarily increased by the hotel......
Thankfully, in today's society, more and more people have the courage to talk about death more calmly and face it head-on, but it may take a long time for the public to accept all this rationally and calmly.
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