Job, love live on

Female mortician overcomes superstitions associated with handling the dead, finds happy marriage and satisfaction in work in Zhoushan.

The thought of being a mortician strikes most people as being a bit mysterious and scary, but Liu Fei said her job has made her a stronger person and that years of work in the field have caused her to lose all of her former fear of corpses.

"When you believe in your job, things that might scare others start seeming natural in your eyes," said Liu, who is a mortician in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province.

Liu was born in Zhoushan and started working in 2000 as a driver for the Zhoushan Funeral Home, where her first job was to deliver bodies. Four years later, she was trained in embalming and began to work as a mortician. Her job now was to ensure the deceased were properly made up before they were cremated.

Liu's workplace has a staff numbering 28 employees, who are often called upon to undertake several tasks at once. In Liu's case, she not only makes up corpses, but also carries, delivers and cremates them.

At the time Liu started her job, she was the sole unmarried woman in her workplace. Despite her stable job and good income, she didn't feel confident when looking for a boyfriend, in part because of the stigma that is attached to being a mortician. She consequently was afraid that others would think she would bring bad luck in tow wherever she went.

She avoided her friends' wedding ceremonies out of a fear that others would think she would jinx the marriages. And she rarely got together with friends and would instead surf the Internet alone after a busy workday.

Despite those obstacles, she fell in love in 2006 with a man who also works in the funeral industry. They got married soon afterward and had a son three years later.

Liu soon found that being a mother made great demands on her time. Because of her work, she had to ask her mother to look after her son and to content herself with going home often to help raise him.

She said every time she sees the pictures of her baby on her phone, she forgets how tired she is and feels happy.

Liu's husband now works as a driver, so they don't have much time to be together. As for his wife's job, he fully supports her continuing in it. He said if he had objections to her work, he would never have chosen Liu to be his wife.

He said that when they were dating, he was afraid that his parents would look at Liu's job and decide to not approve of their relationship. But his worries were baseless.

His parents believe that as long as Liu and their son love each other, they should be together no matter what type of jobs they have.

When the couple talks about their future, they say it is natural to have ups and downs in life, but nothing will be difficult as long as they keep their love alive and stay together.

China Daily

(China Daily 04/05/2011 page6)