THE MORTICIAN

There is a funeral home on Chengdu's Qunzhong Road. Next to the funeral home is a big teahouse, with a run-down façade. The business at the teahouse is fairly good. About 80 percent of its clients are senior citizens. It was inside the teahouse that I recently met the seventy-one-year-old Zhang Daoling, a senior mortician at the funeral home.

LIAO YIWU: Master Zhang, how long have you been in this business?

ZHANG DAOLING: Over forty years. I'm about to retire. I was one of founding members of this funeral home. I started out here in 1957, when I graduated from the local art school. It was the time of the anti-Rightist campaign. Many educated folks had been purged for speaking out against the Communist Party. So people were quite nervous. When my school assigned me this job, I took it right away. If I had refused, I would have easily been labeled a Rightist for disobeying Party orders. When I first started out here, we had about ten staff members. In those days, people seldom used funeral homes. All burial services and rituals were conducted in their own private homes or villages. Most of the dead people were sent to our funeral home by police who had picked them up on the street. They were either murder victims or people killed in traffic accidents. Starting in the mid-1950s, Chairman Mao and other senior Chinese leaders began to encourage citizens to change the traditional practice of burial to cremation because there was simply not enough space for cemeteries. Our funeral home added the cremation service. But the concept of cremation was something that people found hard to accept. As a result, we didn't have much to do at work. My supervisor assigned me the job of designing a bulletin board to publicize Chairman Mao's political teachings. As you know, the Party was launching one political campaign after another. Lots of propaganda materials came in. I had to read them and then publicize them via the bulletin board.

LIAO: I assume the extra assignment kept you fairly busy.

ZHANG: Yes. Following the anti-Rightist campaign in 1957, Chairman Mao launched the Great Leap Forward movement in 1958. In this neighborhood, some young people stormed into the funeral home, urging us to convert the cremation furnace into one that could produce iron and steel. Their reason was that we didn't use the furnace that much and that we needed to make contributions to Chairman Mao's great plan. The funeral home director tried to explain to them that the two types of furnaces were designed differently. The neighbors didn't believe a word he said. They claimed that if a furnace had the capability to cremate a human body, it could be easily converted into one that could melt scraps of metal. When the funeral director refused their demand, they turned him over to the police and had him arrested for obstructing Mao's Great Leap Forward. After our director was taken away, the neighbors moved chunks of ore and coal into the courtyard. Luckily, the county chief heard about it; he rushed over and stopped the mob from destroying the furnace. As a compromise, the county chief allowed the neighbors to build a new furnace in our courtyard. As you can imagine, the quiet and spooky funeral home was turned into a mini smoke-filled noisy factory. I was quite caught up in the movement. I rushed in and out of the funeral home like crazy, collecting every piece of metal I could find from bicycles to cooking utensils. I had almost forgotten that my real job was as a beautician at the funeral home. Oh well, in the next few months, we produced quite a few chunks of useless, low-quality iron. It was a total disaster. The only good thing that came out of that crazy campaign was that I met my current wife. She was in the Communist Youth League and was assigned to the funeral home to help out with our steel production.

LIAO: When did the funeral business officially take off?

ZHANG: It was in the famine of 1960. About twenty to thirty thousand people died of starvation in this county alone. The large number of deaths made it impossible to conduct burial services for each individual. People didn't even have the time and strength to prepare a coffin. All they did was to wrap up the dead in a straw mat and dump the bodies in here for cremation. In the second half of 1960, we were so overwhelmed here that I had to work overtime. The furnace operated quite differently then. We needed to carry the body and push it into the furnace. Sometimes, if the power button didn't work as planned, the flames would start before we had fully adjusted the body in the furnace. Often, we would end up having the leftover ashes blown all over our faces. We looked like we had just murdered the person. But nowadays everything is automatic. You press a button; the body is sent down to the furnace on a conveyor belt.

LIAO: I thought you were a beautician. Why did you have to arrange the actual cremation?

ZHANG: All the dead folks sent over to our funeral home were famine victims. Their relatives couldn't afford extra makeup services. Initially, we could still do a little something to make them look better. In the spring of 1961, food shortages got worse. As more bodies poured in, I didn't even have time to do any makeup. In that year, thousands of people roamed the mountain like locusts, desperately searching for things that were edible—tree bark, grass roots, wild vegetables, even bugs. Unfortunately, all the mountaintops had been deforested to feed the furnaces for iron and steel production. There wasn't much available for people to eat. While walking around to look for food, many people simply dropped dead. The public security guards would force the prisoners—former landlords, rich peasants, Rightists—to climb up the mountain and pick up dead bodies. Those poor prisoners were also hungry. They staged a strike. If they didn't get a steamed wheat bun, they refused to go. When the guards punched them with the butts of their guns, the prisoners still wouldn't budge. Then the county sheriff came up with an innovative body-collecting idea. He used a long rope, tying several dead bodies together and then had some young people drag them down from the mountain. It did save us a lot of energy.

LIAO: Were you affected by the famine?

ZHANG: Luckily, state employees were guaranteed a fixed monthly ration of food. Since the funeral home played an important role in preventing the spread of disease caused by dead bodies, the county government made sure that the furnace ran properly and employees were fed. At the beginning of 1962, signs of cannibalism appeared. The bodies brought back from the mountain were mostly dismembered. The flesh around the thighs, the shoulders, the backs, and the buttocks was all gone. Local government leaders ordered us to keep quiet and get rid of the bodies right away. The public security officials patrolled the mountains at night, ambushed a couple of cannibals, and sent them to jail. Do you know why they wanted to eat human flesh? Many people were suffering from constipation after swallowing a combination of wild grass and white clay to appease the gnawing hunger. Their stomachs became very bloated. Then some herbal doctors told them that human flesh was an effective laxative. They wanted the relief badly.

LIAO: I remember the famine very clearly. I suffered from edema and almost died from it. Let's switch to another topic. What happened to you later? Did you ever switch professions?

ZHANG: Nope. After the famine was over, the funeral business went back to the normal workload. In subsequent years, burial was banned in many places, and more and more people began to accept the practice of cremation. As a result, the funeral home was expanded to include a special hall for memorial services and a makeup room. Makeup procedures varied according to the social status of the dead. For government officials or the more educated folks, we were asked to do a more elaborate makeover for the wake. For ordinary folks in the rural areas, their families didn't even request a wake or a memorial service. All they did was to have a private viewing so relatives could say goodbye. In that case, makeup was very simple: I would wash the face of the deceased, comb the hair, stuff some cotton into the mouth, and apply lipstick and some powder on the cheeks.

LIAO: That was it?

ZHANG: Yes. Sometimes makeup jobs can be challenging. According to Chinese tradition, when a person passes away, the family sets up a wake at home, with his or her body on display for three days. On many occasions, when the body was brought in for a memorial service and cremation, the arms and legs had already become very stiff, the cheeks all sunken and the face blue. If the death had occurred in the summer, the deceased would start to smell. It took a lot of work to make the dead look presentable. The hardest job is to treat violent murder victims. It needs skill and patience to make a ghastly looking face into a normal smiling one.

LIAO: This is a profession for the brave.

ZHANG: Can't say I'm that brave. In many ways, I'm like a doctor who dissects the body. After a while, you just become too desensitized to feel anything. Many writers have written spooky ghost stories about the mortuary. I have worked here for many years, and have not encountered any ghost as described in those books. One time, some guys played a practical joke on me. In the middle of the night, they removed a body that I had worked on and put it against my door. Later on, when I got up and opened the door to use the outhouse, that sucker bumped right into my face, its mouth hitting mine. It scared the hell out of me. Luckily, I soon recognized the body and quickly got myself back together again. I held the dead body, slapped its face twice, and carried it back to the funeral home. After it was all done, I went back to sleep. I didn't really feel anything afterward except my mouth tasted of formaldehyde for several days.

LIAO: When you told the story, my hair almost stood on end. But you talked as if this were something funny.

ZHANG: I was used to it. During the Cultural Revolution when factions of the Red Guards began to engage in gunfights, they made quite a mess in the area. Every couple of days, dead bodies wrapped in red flags would be wheeled in. The Red Guards would force me at gunpoint to clean and embalm the bodies of their comrades. When I dipped some of the bodies into the sink to wash them, the water would immediately turn red. After the wash, I would carefully cover the holes and cuts on the bodies with adhesive plasters. Then, I would change them into the Red Guard uniforms—green army jacket and red armbands. One time, a Red Guard leader was stabbed in the heart by his opponent. When his comrades brought his body into the mortuary a couple days later, his teeth were still clenched, and his eyeballs almost bulged through the sockets. In the end, I had to use a pair of pliers to pull down his eyelids to cover them.

LIAO: Didn't realize you had to use those mechanical tools.

ZHANG: We had to. It was quite a challenge to open his mouth. After I pried it open with a knife, a bunch of maggots crawled out. It turned out that his tongue had rotted. I was so grossed out. I covered my mouth and dashed out for some fresh air. A few minutes later, I pulled myself together and returned. I brushed his teeth, and pumped bottles and bottles of formaldehyde into his stomach. It was like washing a toilet bowl. After I worked on it for a whole afternoon, that angry, distorted face was finally turned into a friendly one, with the smile that everyone remembered. The Red Guards were really touched by my work and my perfectionist attitude. They put a Red Guard armband on my arm and shouted slogans based on Chairman Mao's quotes, “Learn from the workers” and “Serving the people.” They even made me an honorary member of their group.

LIAO: I'm very touched too. I assume that the majority of people coming to pay tribute to the deceased are overcome with grief. After the funeral is over, very few can remember you, a magician who could turn a rotten piece of flesh into a miraculously human-looking body. We seldom read about people like you.

ZHANG: Even if journalists write wonderful things about us, people still don't want to be in this profession. Last year, I bought a new house and moved into a new neighborhood. I was completely cut off from my old friends and from things I was familiar with. The only advantage is that none of my new neighbors knows what I do. Once my son's girlfriend found out about my profession; she vowed never to visit my house again. I heard that she was so scared that she wouldn't stop washing her hands after shaking hands with me. Luckily, my son was really close to me and the incident with his girlfriend didn't affect our relationship. After all, what's to be afraid of? Sooner or later, everyone is going to die. But when people are alive, I guess they don't want to be reminded of death. I understand that perfectly. When I work on those dead bodies, I don't even associate them with death. I block it out of my mind completely. It is just a job.

LIAO: Does it mean that you have transcended human emotions?

ZHANG: Pretty much. There was only one time that I became really emotionally attached. A little girl was killed in a traffic accident. When they brought her to the funeral home, half of her head was gone. I touched her hands and arms, and sadness overcame me. After my assistant bathed her, I asked to be left alone so I could reconstruct her head and face. I filled the back of her head with silicone gel, and covered the gel with a piece of someone else's skin that had been soaked in formaldehyde. I carefully washed and combed her hair, braiding it into a thick pigtail. After I applied some makeup to her face and her lips, I put a white dress on her. She looked radiant, with a sweet smile, as if she were alive. I specifically put on some French mascara. Her eyes looked beautiful. At the memorial service, all the attendees were shocked to see the beautiful angel lying there. They cried and took turns hugging her. I was observing from the corner. I was secretly praying, hoping her parents could allow her to stay in the mortuary one more night so I could look at her alone, bringing some flowers or toys to her. But they quickly wheeled her into the crematorium after the memorial service. All that work lasted for over an hour. Beauty doesn't last. It's bound to be destroyed.

LIAO: Don't be too sad, Master Zhang. Beauty leaves its imprints in the mind. Throughout history, there have been many beautiful moments that can never be recovered, but you and I know that they existed. For example, you know about the epic story of Farewell, My Concubine. About two thousand years ago, General Xiang Yu's troops were trapped by his enemy inside a small southern town. The night before his last battle for life, he sat in his camp with his beloved concubine Yu Ji and sang: “My strength could pull mountains, my spirit could conquer the world. Yet so unlucky am I that my horse just refuses to gallop! What can I do if my horse denies me even a trot? Oh my dear Yu Ji, what would you have me do?” To which Yu Ji replied, after performing a final dance in front of him: “The Han have invaded us. Chu's songs surround us. My lord's spirit is depleted. Why then should I still live?” She cut her own throat with his sword. Grief-stricken, Xiang Yu fought his way to the Wu River. After all his men had fallen, he took his own life. People took this tragic story and imbued it with new feeling, imagination, and meaning. The concubine, a rare, unimaginable beauty, perished from the world, just like the little girl you talked about. But her story passes on from generation to generation.

ZHANG: You writers make things sound so poetic. You have very good memories. Even though I only understand half of what you just said, I know you are complimenting my work. Throughout my career, nobody has used those poetic words to praise me. I have spent most of my life in that funeral home. What am I going to do after I retire? I don't know how to play cards or chess. I don't like to chat with people. All I know about is dead people.

LIAO: You can raise a cat or a dog or go fishing. People can have different hobbies.

ZHANG: I'm too afraid to feel attached to anyone or anything. Cats and dogs are like human beings. After you live with them long enough, you begin to feel attached, and one day, when you have to part with them forever, you will feel sad. So many nice people and good-looking people die each day. I work on their bodies, hoping to temporarily preserve and enhance their beauty before they are gone forever. It's tough. The scariest part of life is not death, but the loss that comes with death. When I look around me, I notice that I can't afford to lose stuff anymore.

My former boss died at the beginning of this year. He was not even seventy yet. I did the makeup for him. This guy had one hobby when he was alive. He collected all sorts of wedding invitations when he was young. After he turned fifty, he began to collect obituaries. His whole room was filled with his collections. He used to say that all obituaries sounded the same and that we Chinese people lack imagination in the use of language.

LIAO: That was kind of eccentric.

ZHANG: Well, he wanted his own obituary to be imaginative and unique. So he began to compose his own when he was still alive. He had printed a couple hundred copies and stored them in a drawer, along with his bank accounts and his will. After he died, his friends located those copies and showed one to Old Wang, the new Party secretary at the funeral home. Old Wang, who was going to preside over the memorial service, read it aloud to several people during the rehearsal. Nobody could understand what the obituary was about. It was so archaic.

LIAO: I assume he must have used an ancient style of liturgy.

ZHANG: Perhaps. They sounded like haiku. I didn't know half of the characters. They were handwritten, and I assume that he must have read it hundreds of times before he died, hoping those could be the last words he left for this world. Unfortunately, the new Party secretary didn't think his obituary reflected the revolutionary spirit of the new era. So he composed a new one filled with modern political jargon. It was written in a style and language that our past director had despised. He could be turning over in his grave. Oh well, what can you do? This is China. You don't have much control when you are alive. When you die, you won't have control over your own obituary either.