words rachel mok

A good farewell for a beloved deceased needs some dedicated people

While respect for the dead is inherent in Chinese culture, the funeral business is not typically a career choice for Chinese people. But still, with seven funeral homes and 94 funeral service providers or, in Chinese, ‘shop of long life’ in Hong Kong (54 in the Hung Hom area), over 20,000 livelihoods depend on the industry. When the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department decided to issue new licences to the undertakers on Wuhu Street, Hung Hom, residents protested because they worried it would affect property prices in the area. So bc canvassed some of the people in the industry to find out why they chose to work in this ‘offensive trade’ in the first place.

Henry Lam
Executive Manager
of Tim Fat Funeral Service
Catch a glimpse of Henry Lam in Central with one of his mobile phones tucked into his ear and you may well think he is a stockbroker. He is young, brutally direct and sharp-tongued, but he doesn’t manipulate the Hang Seng index – Lam’s main activity centres on the Hung Hom area on Baker Street, where he has been executive manager of Tin Fat Funeral Services for the past nine years. With none of his family in the industry, Lam entered it out of curiosity. “I think this industry is interesting… and I see business opportunities here,” he says. “It won’t be replaced by anything else because it is not a trendy thing. You have to use the service some day, anyway.” In fact, the funeral business could be seen as an extension of a previous career – he was an insurance agent for more than 10 years. “Everything is related… you know what stages your clients are in,” Lam says.

His shop now provides one-stop funeral services in three packages (which cover coffin, hearse, monks, joss-paper, decoration of the funeral hall etc), prices ranging from $28,800. But the 35-year-old looks – and acts – every inch the young entrepreneur. Almost 10 phone calls interrupt our 40-minute conversation and, in a business that usually advertises through regional newspapers, he is proud to be among the earliest to set up a homepage with information for potential users. “The internet is accessible every day and at any time. I have had some 40-year-old clients going online to get our contact details,” he says. “The older ones in the business either don’t go online or [if they do] they would rather play mahjong instead.” He has even set up a discussion forum on the website so that people can clear up questions and gather information on funeral matters. On average he will organize six or seven funerals a month, maybe a dozen in a ‘good’ month. The internet plays a small part in that organization, though it is a help in ordering flowers etc. In the beginning, he thought his youth would count against him but it hasn’t. “People think I am young and ready to try new things. And I don’t play weird tricks,” he says. “I even accept Visa and instalment payments.”

Lam sees himself as a bridge between the families of the deceased and the workers in the business. “There are a lot of things to learn but I don’t need to know everything. If you need a Chiu Chow master, I know where to find you one. If you need a Buddhist one, I know where to find that for you too,” he says. “I just need to know the cost [you can afford].” Talking about ghost stories on online radio has been one the stranger things he has done in the line of duty, though he says that, as he doesn’t have a religious belief, it wasn’t much of a big deal. He sniffs when asked if he would let his kids continue in his business. “It is just a way of making a living,” he says. “I would be happy if my father had bequeathed me the business. Then I wouldn’t have to work so hard while I am young – all I would need to do is to improve his way of running the business.”

Fan Chun Sing
Cheung Kei Worship Supplies
Five hundred Hong Kong dollars for a house plus a back yard – we are not talking about property prices in historical Hong Kong, we are talking about the future. To be more specific, the afterlife. Chinese people believe the deceased can receive the paper-models, joss-paper and hell bank notes we burn for them, and so setting these paper objects alight is a regular part of any funeral ceremony. Forty-four-year-old Fan Chun Sing of Cheung Kei Worship Supplies has been making paper-models for the last 18 years. Originally working in transportation, Fan lost his job at 26 and was introduced to the business by a monk friend. He has been in it ever since, and is honest enough to say – repeatedly – that he is bored. “Every day I come back and face these things,” he sniffs and points at paper-models of swans, wheelchairs and rocking chairs hanging in the crammed and stuffy shop on Winslow Street, Hung Hom. “But I am 44 already. If you are a boss, would you employ a 40-something or a 20-something?”

The veteran says model making doesn’t require a lot of artistic skill, though he admits sometimes a client’s request “is a test to see if you have the qualifications to compete the task. If a client gives me the picture of a Harley [Davidson] motorcycle, I will have to figure it out.” A special request will usually take four days to realise, Fan says, and it will look about 80% like the real thing, whereas the standard two-storey house with backyard would only take 40 minutes when he was young and fit. Fan says he had to learn four things when he first started: gluing paste, cutting paper, remembering the size and cutting the rattan into equal lengths. “It is easy because a lot of things are standardized, especially when the lines are straight,” he explains, pointing at the base and beams of the paper house. Then he indicates the wheel of a paper car. “But when there is a curve, it is much more difficult and you have to put in more effort to learn it.” He also has to keep up to date with the many new products (i-Pods, LV bags and various models of cell phone) that have come on the market, often bought from China and Thailand. A paper house may cost a walk-in customer $900-$1000, though the price can be reduced by half for a funeral home that is a regular customer.

Isn’t paper-model making one of the cruelest jobs imaginable? After all, all your hard work ends up burnt – isn’t that a bit frustrating? “Nah, I got used to it already. In the past I used to look at my fingers all covered by plaster in winter, but now I don’t care anymore,” Fan says. His proudest moment came in 2002, when his company made the ‘HK1’ Rolls Royce for Cantopop legend Roman Tam’s funeral. “I did the delivery and was stopped so pictures could be taken for the newspaper.” Asked if he thinks working in the funeral business could bring him bad luck, he is quick to respond. “I am only afraid if there is no money in my wallet,” he says.

Wong Cheuk Kit
Taoist Monk
When your family has been in the same business for three generations, it is difficult to get away from it. Forty-eight-year-old Wong Cheuk Kit almost escaped. Wong’s father, brother and uncle are Taoist monks whose job it is to chant prayers in a funeral to lead the soul of the deceased to heaven. Wong didn’t enter the business until 28, after he got fed up working in the catering industry. “I didn’t want to learn it at the beginning… it is just not a common business,” he says. He didn’t like it when people called Taoist monks ‘Namo lo’, ‘Namo’ coming from the Buddhist phrase Namo Amitabha, and ‘lo’ standing for man in Cantonese. “Plus wearing that robe… it just looks old-fashioned,” Wong smiles. “But my father always says we won’t die from the cold doing this job because we have that robe.”

Starting as an apprentice, Wong says his duties included “preparing every necessity for every stage of the funeral, like folding the joss-paper and lighting the candles”. This, to Wong, is like a test of one’s patience. Now he usually works from 6 or 7pm till 11pm or midnight, though in the past the ceremony could last from 4pm till 3am the next morning. This, he believes, shows Hong Kongers no longer regard funerals as important. An old Chinese saying maintains that good descendants would sell themselves to mount a decent funeral for their parents. “Now people don’t have the time to do a big funeral,” Wong says. While a traditional Chinese funeral could last more than 49 days, “People now rather save the money… They think it is a waste of money to do that.”

A follower of Taoism himself, Wong believes his job creates merit for the deceased and their family – “There is no need to be afraid; I just pretend they are sleeping,” he says. He sometimes gets calls from clients saying they have dreamed of the deceased who complain they didn’t burn enough paper money or models for them. But even that is not the spookiest part of the job. “One time after the ritual, the son of the deceased came up and told me he saw his father following me while I jumped over the fire,” he recalls. “You just cannot explain these things.”

Though Wong says his job helps others, he is adamant he doesn’t want his children to follow in his footsteps. His “No!” comes before I have even completed the question. His reasons, however, are purely economic. “I think the industry is fading. A lot of people are Christians now… and a lot of elderly have a few drops of holy water poured on them before they die and become Christians too,” he says. “We are no longer needed.”

Kong Gor
Make-up Artist
Being a make-up artist for corpses can hardly be a child’s aspiration, but 43-year-old Kong Gor has always been interested in it. From a very young age he was fascinated by horror and ghost films and always wondered what people were like after they died. “It is the kind of thing for which I would buy a VCD and bring it home and watch,” he says cheerfully. Kong worked in different jobs – from security to making plastic signs – before entering the funeral industry in 2000 through the referral of a friend. No special qualifications are needed for the trade, he says. Rumour has it one would have to sit outside a mortuary for hours before being offered the job, but Kong says that is not necessary. “It just depends if you have a friend that is willing to bring you in,” he says. And he didn’t hesitate when the offer came up – after all, he had been curious about the business all his life.

If you are seeing Kong as Rico from Six Feet Under you may be disappointed. Although a fan of the series, Kong thinks the character of the omnipotent make-up artist is an exaggeration. “Usually we only take cases that are 70-80% close to the original,” he explains. “Anything less than that is just impossible to repair.” Perhaps such skills can be found overseas, but in Hong Kong make-up artists tend to suggest closed casket ceremonies for irreparable corpses. “Imagine a vase is broken… how could you possibly fix it completely? Also, think about what’s beneath the skin…” Still, he finds a lot of satisfaction in making the deceased look as good as possible, even though it may not look as perfect as TV makes out. “It is like doing good for the deceased. In fact it makes me happier than making money if I have done a good job.”

Kong first learnt how to dress a body but now he oversees the whole process; from cleaning the body to the final make-up. It all takes, on average, two to three hours. His easy-going and fun-loving character shines through the interview – and gets him through the difficult jobs. He stretches his tongue when I ask if he has had any ‘unusual encounters’ in the last nine years. “Luckily no, but sometimes when I try to take off a bracelet from some elderly person, I just can’t no matter how hard I try,” he says. “Some colleagues taught me to whisper things like, ‘Relax, I am just trying to take this off to give it to your family’ and amazingly I can take it off without much hassle.”

Although he casually talks about his work as if it means little, certain things he does play by the rule – he always refuses to be photographed and never allows his name to be written out in full. “That is what my senior always told me – try not to be photographed,” he says. For our interview, he specifically chose a café far from the main streets where most of the funeral shops located. “My boss may not like it,” he says. ”I’m just trying to protect my job.”