A former crematory operator talks of life and love in his unusual career, Xing Yi reports.

It was a job that required facing death every day. A job that felt creepy at times. A job that paid little. But former crematory operator Li Nansheng tried to make the most of it, and he explores the meaning of death and life in his fiction My Five Years of Working in the Crematorium. Li, 36, seemed to be destined for the job. Both of his parents were specialized musicians who performed at traditional funerals; they not only sang funeral songs and incantations, but also performed religious rituals. His wife is a mortuary makeup artist. Li himself was born during a funeral session.

"When I was born, my ears were filled with music," Li says. "The first sound I heard was a dirge."

His first name "Nansheng", given by Li's father, literally means "birth during the incantations". When Li decided to take the job at a crematorium in 2004, his parents readily agreed. It is no easy job, as it requires being physically and mentally strong. "To learn how to operate the crematory is one thing," he says. "But to overcome fear is another thing."

Every day, Li had to deal with corpses, and sometimes he would have to fetch a corpse as late as midnight.

In his book, Li recounts many stories that were inspired by mysterious cases he encountered in his work. Some of them have scientific explanations while the reason for other "strange" happenings remains a mystery.

Occasionally, Li felt prejudice and discrimination. Many Chinese people think that working in this area brings "bad luck", which makes it difficult for people like Li to find love.

Most of the practitioners usually marry their colleagues, and so did Li. His wife used to work in the mortuary makeup department at the same crematorium.

"The marriages among people in this trade are mostly blessed," he says. "We have seen too many departures between life and death, and learned to cherish each other."

Li started posting his fictional stories on an online forum tianya.cn in 2011, and soon received enthusiastic responses - millions of clicks and thousands of replies.

"At first, I wrote my stories about the crematory house just to kill time," Li recalls. "Then many readers asked me to write more, so the short stories ended up as a novel."

Li has now quit the job and become a businessman; writing is his part-time hobby. His first book was done without a plan in advance, and Li doesn't have the next one fixed in his mind. "Maybe the next book will also come up in a way I never expected," he says.

His book was published in Chinese in 2012 and sold more than 10,000 copies.

Sharing thoughts on life and experiences with the dead, Li's novel has thrilled some readers while touching their hearts. One reader told Li that he once had thoughts of committing suicide but changed his mind after reading Li's posts online. "He said he realized the value of life, joking that he didn't want to see me that early," Li adds.

Contact the writer at xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/13/2014 page19)