1
Just after the Chinese New Year in 2016, a group of 00 high school students walked into the funeral home carrying a camera.
This is a “career” interview that Hainan High School asked students to do during the holidays. Just after the holidays, Wang Jie of senior class 16 approached senior Xu Shuo with a request for cooperation – senior Xu Shuo is experienced in photography and has won awards. The 11-member film crew, with Xu Shuo as director, was soon set up and set out to find a special industry to interview and shoot.
Traffic police, physicians in psychiatric hospitals, demolition personnel, and even public security lie detectors …… students tried to consult many professions, but all had to give up for various reasons such as danger or confidentiality.
“Shooting morticians, what do you think?” Xu Shuo asked.
Once the words were out, the schoolchildren looked at him like a monster, “Shooting dead people?”
“I have shot sky burial in Tibet, it was really a baptism. The mortician’s profession is very special, and I want to be able to shoot well.”
Around Qingming, a documentary called “Morticians” landed on the Internet.
There are many send-offs in a person’s life, and morticians are the final send-offs. And because of this, the funeral industry makes people taboo.
2
The filming started after the Chinese New Year. The location of the funeral home in the suburbs, very remote, plus the surrounding trees, surrounded by a desolate.
Before approaching the funeral home, you can hear the sound of heartbreaking cries and sad music from afar, and a large black transport truck drives gently past the pedestrians. The transport stopped at the gate, two transporters jumped off the car, opened the back door of the car, sent a body off the transport and slowly pushed it into the morgue.
A few girls instinctively covered their eyes, from the cracks of their fingers, see the corpse transporters pull up the white cloth, carefully covered in blood-stained corpses, without a trace of panic and disgust, like a sheet to a sleeping relative.
Xu Shuo they followed closely to the past, the morgue, the master worker pulled open a huge cooler, the silk cold gas came out ……
Out of the underground cold storage, Xu Shuo was about to go up and greet the corpse worker, but saw him take out his cell phone, while signaling the driver to turn around, while answering the phone and asked: “Which property? Pick the most important to say, the specific location is where …… good, we immediately rushed over ……”
After saying that, jumped in the car and left.
It turns out that a building under construction, two workers painting the exterior wall from the 19-story high building accidentally fell down and died on the spot.
After learning the students’ intention, the transport master was interviewed.
“The transporters are the front-runners in the funeral home, and they have to rush to the scene immediately when notified by dispatch. In the post for so many years, what death scene have seen, suicide, car accidents, accidents, separation of the body have.”
Last year, super typhoon No. 9, “Wimaxon” landfall, an old lady’s partner died, children are not around, she can only call the funeral home. Panic, she could not even say her address, just repeatedly chanting: “Come, come, I’m in Guomao ……”
Transport master while advising her not to panic, while patiently telling her to find the community property first, and then let the property to call them, which was to know her specific address. “An old man, just like that, alone guarding the body of his partner.”
3
In the cremation room, Master Huang, the cremator, was busy.
The temperature inside the cremation furnace reaches 1600 degrees, and when busy, several furnaces need to be opened at the same time. The temperature of the cremation room is very high, in order to completely incinerate the body, you need to open the door a few times, the entire cremation room is filled with the rumble of the machine and the smell of hot smoke.
After the cremation, Master Huang began to fill the urn with ashes. He slowly spread out the yellow silk cloth in the box, and used a shovel to gather the ashes together and put them into the box one by one. Those who have not burned out the bones, he personally hands pick up, not wearing gloves, and no clamps.
“In order to ensure that the furnace is clean and clean, after the cremation of each body, we have to repeatedly clean the furnace several times, which is a respect for the dead. This is not a pile of ashes, but a person.”
Yet such a profession, but can not be emotionally exposed.
Cremation master Zhu on the second day of his shift. He pushed a 40-year-old female deceased, the cart has almost reached the crematorium, a 10-year-old girl chased the car forward, hands dragging the car is not to let go, hissing and crying “Mom! .
This side of the furnace door has been opened, the girl still does not let go, Zhu master to close the door, had to force her hands loose, and then send her to the door. When the door was closed, someone in the relatives team complained: “What a cold-blooded animal! Such heartlessness ……”
4
The funeral home’s plastic surgery room resembles a medical operating room, filled with medical equipment. Bright and airy white room, the remains of the cosmetologist Li master is busy.
The deceased was a young woman who died in a car accident, with multiple wounds on her body and face. Master Li put on gloves, nimbly pick up the needle and thread, carefully in accordance with the texture of human muscle and bone structure for suturing, after the suturing is complete, began to help the deceased wear the life jacket, because the limbs are too stiff, Master Li had to put the deceased’s hand on his own arm.
Settle down, and then the next step: makeup.
Master Li took out the makeup tray, thought about it, got up and walked out, asking the husband of the deceased: “What kind of hair style did she like before she died? What color lipstick do you like?”
An hour later, when the deceased was pushed out of the plastic surgery room, her husband gently lifted the white cloth, see the wife’s face peaceful, as if asleep.
Master Li said, “The deceased was very beautiful in life, can not let her go with regret.”
In front of the funeral director, everyone “is the same”. (Network picture) in front of the mortician, everyone “is the same. (Network picture)
In the interval of work, Master Li also talked about some past events. December 23, 2015, the northwest corner of the Pearl artificial island found a male body, the body with a fishing net has been some decay, the police decided to send to Haikou funeral home temporary storage.
Finally until the time of cremation, the deceased did not have a family member to the scene.
Before cremation, Master Li endured the disgusting stench of the corpse, carefully cleaned up the body, and as usual, carefully organized, dressed …… However, the next family of the deceased is not satisfied, shouted at him: “A nameless corpse, directly into the cremation room cremation is not on the line? You are so slow to make up, we have to wait until what time?” But Master Li said to the family without panic: “No matter who it is, we have to follow the order!”
Master Li said that this job has made him see the world as a whole. Some people died, the family of a big ceremony is not satisfied, some of the dead but even a mourner. But in front of the funeral director, everyone “is the same”.
5
Near the end of the shooting, Xu Shuo let the transport department of a master on camera for an interview, the master smiled nervously, “Wait a moment, I went inside to do something.” Said into the rest room, came out, hair combed neatly, beard also shaved clean, but also changed a handsome suit. Everyone laughed, “I did not expect the master to pay so much attention to his image ah!”
But the next morning, the master found Xu Shuo: “Boy, can you not show my appearance in your film?” Xu Shuo was a little surprised.
The master sighed and said helplessly, “I thought about it overnight and decided not to show my face. When my son was in the third grade, his classmates knew I was working in a funeral home, and laughed at him all day long for being the ‘offspring of a corpse puller’ and not playing with him. Later, I changed my son’s school and lied to him that his father had changed jobs and was a police officer. Now, even the parents back home only know that I work in Hainan, simply do not know what I do specifically ……”
“Don’t even mention your name, don’t even mention your last name ……,” the master added.
Plastic surgeon Master Li has the same entanglement with his profession, “I rarely attend the weddings of friends and relatives, even if the last resort, is to rush there to put down the red packet and leave. I never take the initiative to shake hands with people, afraid that people are taboo.”
6
One day, Master Huang cremation of a Guizhou deceased, suddenly, a 30-year-old female family members had to let Master Huang open the furnace door, so that she watched her husband’s remains into ashes.
Master Huang did not understand the meaning, the female family members said: “To be honest, people say you cremation industry often sell oil, sold to those restaurant owners as food oil ……” Master Huang was very surprised, said never had such a thing.
Perhaps because of sadness, the woman’s tone is very hard: “WeChat are posting these, our families do not feel at ease. Now ah, what a fortune have!” Master Huang no longer explain, wipe the sweat, turn away and continue to work silently. Female family members are still chattering on the side.
Xu Shuo clearly remembered the last time the scene, that day, he ran into the wiring dispatcher Xiao Liu girl. Liu is a recent college graduate, came to work in the funeral home not long ago. That day, in the process of photography, Xu Shuo suddenly heard the sound of a cell phone shutter behind him, turned around and saw that Xiao Liu was taking a selfie with them as the background.
Seeing that he was discovered, Xiao Liu smiled embarrassed: “In fact, shooting can not do anything, do our line of work, can never be like other girls in the circle of friends show work photos. Just, see you guys to shoot the documentary, I am very touched, although not sun to others to see, want to treasure themselves, after all, the funeral home also have people to interview, there are people in the world willing to understand us.”
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