Morticians find fulfillment in providing peaceful goodbyes

"To make deceased bodies look better, to bless them with eternal beauty, it requires the morticians to be calm, to be precise, to be sentimental." - Quotes from Departures (2008).

In Beijing Babaoshan Mortuary, Qu Jie and her fellow morticians have been doing this job for years. It's a mysterious line of work, helping the dead to leave this world with dignity.

Qu has had to prepare 100 bodies for burial every month for the past couple of years.

"Their look should reflect the life experience behind them," she said. "Therefore, we are particularly cautious about the death certificate, to put makeup on them like they would love to wear when they were alive."

The morticians view the body from the position the living relatives will take when paying their final farewell and check the finished look.

With respect for the dead, Qu sanitizes the body and then carefully starts the makeup procedure.

"For the toughest case, I spent two days, the body was burnt by gas," Qu said. "Once the body was moved in, the mortuary smelled very badly. The skin was burnt of and the limbs were disfigured. We had to clean the whole body, replace the limbs, hide the wound, dress him and recreate his face, then do the makeup."

In the makeup room, the shelf was full of skeletal models and plastic surgery-related books. To be a mortician requires a vast array of in-depth knowledge.

"The first time I got to do it, I was both excited and nervous," she said. "I worried I couldn't pull it of, but I was pumped that I was finally able to do it myself."

Death is the end of life, but to morticians, it is the start of each day. They started by conquering their own fear, then battled the misunderstandings and social bias against them.

Qu starts her work by 7 am and one body can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several days.

In the future, she hopes to enhance her skills to better serve the deceased and the living, to provide both with peace and closure.

Asked if she ever felt scared doing the night shift, she said: "In this profession, I feel fear when I stay home alone, especially as a girl. Sometimes I sleep with the lights on, or find something to do to keep myself busy like chatting with a friend and just try not to think about it."

Three decades ago, Babaoshan didn't even have morticians on staff. But now people want to show more respect for their loved ones.

In Beijing, about 600 people come to the end of their life each day. Every time a dead body is sent to the mortuary, the morticians hope it was a natural death. For those who live in peace, morticians usually will not try to hide the marks of age on their faces.

"You will find death is a very heavy subject. Nothing is more important than to live.

"My husband is not fully supportive, but he's not against it either. His only concern is the high volume of work and how the long hours will affect my health," said Qu. "But my parents were all supportive when I chose my profession, they thought because it was not a popular profession that it would be easy to find a stable job."

China Daily