There is always a time when a novel is finished, and a movie always has a time to end. And the same is true of human life, flowers blossom and fall, this is the final end of man. But people always have such a fear of death, and even death-related work seems to carry the shadow of fear.
For example, the mortician. Mortician has always been a profession that seems very mysterious to the outside world, in fact, this title was introduced from Japan, it has a more direct name - the body beautician, at the end of life, they use their dexterous hands to bathe and make up the deceased, bringing them dignity and serenity.
Funeral rites are one of the ancient Chinese rituals. The ancients regarded the handling of the funeral of relatives, especially their parents, as an extremely important event, and formed a strict funeral system very early. In modern times, China's traditional funeral customs have clearly shown signs of decadence, and the general trend is that funerals are simple, influenced by the import of Western culture, and funeral styles have evolved into memorial services. Later, funeral homes, cemeteries, and crematoriums appeared, and funeral services gradually became socialized.
But in today's society, the mortician, the servicer who stands at the end of the deceased's life, is rarely known.
procedure
"A complete facelift involves washing the body inside and out, spraying specially embalmed perfume, and then changing into new clothes and getting a haircut. You also have to massage the bare parts of the skin a little bit, from the forehead, cheeks, lips, neck to hands, you have to repeat it, until you "come back to life", so that the skin is as elastic as a living person, and then smeared with a layer of oil to make it shiny; Then there is makeup and beauty, and the pace should not be hurried or slow. The color should be properly matched, the eyebrow tail, the corners of the mouth, and the nose wings are very important, but the key is the eyes, whether it can give people a feeling of peaceful sleep. ”
"Plastic surgery is generally determined by the social status of the deceased during his lifetime. Like ordinary people, even the memorial service is exempted, and a farewell ceremony is held, so the plastic surgery procedure is simplified to washing the face, combing the hair, filling the mouth with cotton, and then applying some rouge. ”
Up to now, the requirement for the plastic surgery of the remains is to restore the appearance of the body as much as possible. If it is a young woman, it will use bright and bright makeup; if it is an elderly person, it will be mainly nature; some remains have defects, lost an arm, or half of the face, or even the whole head is gone, then it must be copied.
The movie "The Mortician" - May you be treated tenderly by the world
The male protagonist, Daigo, has been learning cello since kindergarten and dreams of becoming a cellist who can play in a band. Just like most people's dreams, he eventually gave up for practical reasons. Growing up practicing the cello so hard, he lost the opportunity to become a musician, what is the meaning of his life?
A cellist mistakenly became a mortician, from fear, retreat, to acceptance, love. He was slighted by his friends and threatened by his wife, but he still chose to stay. When his wife said he was "dirty" he asked him "how do you talk to your children about your work in the future?" Daigo retorted, "You will die, I will die, everyone will die, death is a perfectly normal thing, so there is nothing to be ashamed of the mortician." ”
Daigo's father eloped with a waiter at a coffee shop when he was six years old, leaving him to live with his mother at a young age, never to be seen again. Daigo no longer remembered his father's face, only some warm fragments, but the few fragments could not warm him at all, and he hated his father.
His father had told him that a long time ago, when human beings did not understand words and languages, people would look for stones that matched their hearts and give them to each other, and those who received stones would judge each other's intentions according to the touch and weight of the stones. For example, smooth stones indicate a stable mood, and uneven stones indicate concern for each other.
It turns out that the most primitive emotional transmission is the real spiritual communication, and people can read each other's hearts without the help of language (even more often than not, lies), without relying on expressions (perhaps more often than not.
Daigo unexpectedly receives the news of his father's death, and after some internal struggle, he decides to see his father for the last time, and when he sees his father's cold corpse, he finally remembers the loving face in his memory. His father had never contacted him in his life, but when he died, he held a smooth stone in his hand, and the apologies and blessings he could not express were finally passed on to The Great Enlightenment in this way after death.
The novel "A Woman Like Me" – Sissi
What man in the world doesn't love women who are gentle, warm, and sweet-spoken? And those women should also engage in some kind, gentle, elegant work. But my work is cold and gloomy and twilight, and I think I personally have already been infected with such a fog, so why would a man as bright as the sun marry such a gloomy woman?
A woman like me is actually not suitable for anyone to fall in love. But the relationship between me and Xia has developed to such an extent that I myself am surprised. I think that the reason why I fell into the current situation of inextricability was entirely due to the cruel manipulation of fate on me, and I had no way to fight back against fate. I've heard people say that when you really like someone, just sit quietly in a corner and look at him even with a very casual smile, you will suddenly feel scattered. For Xia, that's exactly how I feel. So, when Xia asked me: Do you like me, I expressed my feelings unreservedly. I am a person who does not know how to protect myself, and my demeanor and language will make me a laughingstock of others forever. When I sat in the coffee room with Xia, I seemed so happy, but my heart was full of hidden worries, and I was actually extremely unhappy, because I had foreseen where fate would take me, and it was entirely due to my fault. In the beginning, I should not have agreed to go to a distant place with Xia to visit a classmate who had been separated for a long time, but later, I did not refuse to watch movies with him regularly. For these things, regret is too late, and in fact, regret or no regret, respectively, has become less important. At this moment I was sitting in a corner of the café waiting for Summer, and I promised to take him to my place of work, and it would be over at that moment. When I met Xia and I had been out of school for a long time, so when Xia asked me if I was doing something, I said I had been working outside the home for many years.
So, what is your job?
he asked.
Makeup for people.
I say.
Ah, it's makeup.
He said.
But your face is so plain.
He said he was a man who didn't like women's makeup, and he liked plain faces. So he noticed that there was no makeup on my face, I suppose, not because I had come up with an answer to his inquiry, but because my face was paler than the average person. The same goes for my hands. My hands and my face were paler than the average person, and it was a consequence of my work. I know that when I spoke out about my profession, Xia, like every other friend I've ever had, misunderstood me directly. In his imagination, my work was a kind of work to beautify the appearance of ordinary women, for example, on wedding festivals, to beautify the faces of brides who were about to marry; so when I said that my work did not have holidays, and that even Sundays were often busy, he believed it even more. On Sundays or holidays, there are always so many brides. But my job is not to make up for the bride, but to make a final touch for those who are no longer alive, so that they will appear calm and gentle at the last moment of their death. In the past days, I have also mentioned my profession to my friends, and when they have a slight misunderstanding, I immediately correct and argue them, so that they know what kind of a person I am, but my honesty has made me lose almost all my friends, and it is I who have frightened them, as if I, sitting across from them drinking coffee, am also a ghost of fear in their minds. I don't blame them for this, we are born with a primitive timidity about the unknowable mysteries of life. I did not explain the answer to Xia's question, firstly because I was afraid that he would be frightened, that I could no longer disturb my friends around me because of my strange profession, so that I would not be able to forgive myself; second, because I was a man who did not know how to express my own meaning, and that I had long been accustomed to silence.
Documentary "Funeral Man's Handbook" – Thomas Lynch
In our small town, I bury about one or two hundred people a year, in addition to dozens of cremations. I sell coffins, tombs, urns, and headstone tombstones. I also order flowers for guests if they need them.
In addition to these tangible goods, one of my main businesses is funeral home services. The funeral home is 11,000 square feet and is a very elaborate building, with exquisite wall panels and ceiling lines, painted in light tones. The entire facility is repeatedly mortgaged, and the loan will not be repaid until the next century. Transportation consisted of a hearse, two Fleetwood sedans and a minivan with dark windows, the last of which was called a service vehicle on the price list, but the townspeople called it the "Death Carriage."
As for the service items, in the past, the one-stop pricing method was adopted, which was convenient for guests, as long as they selected a single item. That's a big number. Now it is different, according to the regulations, the service items must be listed one by one. The price list is incredibly long, row by line, densely packed with items, prices and numbers, as well as abstained items in italics, looking like a menu or Sears Catalog. Sometimes you have to add some federal regulations, such as driving routes or rear window defrosting or something. Most of the time, I was dressed in black, reminding the villagers what kind of occasion this was, and everyone was not here to gossip. There is still a big number at the bottom of the price list.
In normal business years, the turnover is close to one million, of which five percent is almost profitable. There was only one funeral merchant in town, and my business was rock solid.
People die every moment, not on a particular day of the week or a certain month of the year, and no season seems special. The movement of the stars, the profit and loss of the moon, the various religious festivals, all premeditated. The place of death is even more sloppy. In a Chevrolet car, in a nursing home, in the bathroom, on an interstate, in an emergency room, on an operating table, in a BMW sedan, upright or lying down, people are ready to go home. Although because we have always valued life and used all means and equipment to save lives, and deaths often occur in specific places – such as rehabilitation wards and better-equipped intensive care units – it goes without saying that the deceased did not care about it. In this sense, the dead I buried and cremated were no different from those of the past, for whom time and space had become utterly insignificant. In fact, the loss of meaning is the first clear sign that a major event is about to take place. Next, they stopped breathing. In this regard, "gunshot wounds in the chest" or "shock and injury" are certainly more urgent than "cerebrovascular accidents" or "arteriosclerosis", but no cause of death is less important than other causes of death. Death, as long as any one cause of death is enough. What else could the deceased care about?
I'm sorry to have to repeat the same cliché again, but that's the core problem of our business: once you die, nothing in the world can be imposed on you, happen for you, appear with you, or happen because of you, bring you benefit or hurt you. If our influence can really reach others for the sake of good and evil, it is only for the living, accumulating in them day by day, and your death also occurs relative to them. The living cannot get rid of these, and you are not. Your death brings them sorrow or joy, gains or losses, painful or happy memories, receipts for funeral expenses, and bills to be paid by mail.
Hovering in my mind at this moment, such a simple truth is self-evident. But to my old mother-in-law, to the parish priest, to the strangers I always meet in barbershops, at cocktail parties, at school parent-teacher meetings, to those who are as stubborn as granite, as if out of divine duty, who summon me forward and ask me to do this and that after their deaths, it seems most incomprehensible.
I want to say, let the dead rest in peace, and that's what you're going to do.
One day you will die, lie flat on your legs, the work is over, and let your husband or wife or children or siblings decide whether to bury or cremate, whether to throw you out of the sky with the sound of a cannon, or to leave you lying in a deep ditch somewhere and dried into a mummy. Anyway, this is not a day when you look at the hilarity, you are the dead, and the dead want nothing.
Poetry "Tomb Bed" - Gu Cheng
I know that eternal death is coming, and I am not sad
My wishes are placed in the pine forest
There is the sea below, which looks like a pool from a distance
A little bit with me is the afternoon sun
The time is over, and the world is long
I should rest in the middle
People who walked by said the branches were low
People who walk by say that the branches are growing
significance
You may not have been to a funeral, but two people die every second in the world. After you finish reading the last sentence, there are 8 fewer people in the world. Now there are 14 fewer. Since the deceased cannot take care of himself, he has to do the work of the funeral parlor.
▌ You must understand that people die like lights out, and their whole life is just a gap between white colts. Dead people are the least terrible, and although you fix their bodies, they won't say thank you. But they are obedient, and do not run around, the most important thing is the service you do, they generally will not ask you to rework, such a high-quality guest, in the world of the living is not easy to find ah.
▌ No one can tell us where the journey of the dead leads. Only hope that at the last moment of their lives, they will still be treated gently.
▌ I think that at least it can make us think about the value of living. If death cannot choose, there can only be one look, but living can have countless choices, and it does not have to be just like a clock, turning in a busy way.
▌ I sent him away for a ride like this, and I felt very secure in my heart.
▌ The work of the mortician is meaningless to the deceased, and may only give the living one last chance to release their heavy emotions.
▌ "Big", once used to be the name of Tianjin people for wedding and funeral organizers. Now "big" refers specifically to the organizers who engage in white things. In fact, it is a profession that we often hear about now--- to enter the mortician. The reason why the people of Tianjin want to give the mortician this name may contain this meaning: people think they can put death, the most difficult thing, and put it together.
▌ The morticians do not want to touch China, but only to be worthy of every deceased who passed through their hands.
You must have heard of the profession of "mortician" (those who have not heard of it, please ask Du Niang), how will you think about the practitioners of this profession? Will you be afraid of them? Despise them? Or do you respect them?