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Meet the Chinese woman who tries on clothes for dead people so they look sharp at their own funeral
- Death is a taboo subject in China, so Fang Fang trying on their clothes is met with suspicion
- But her goal is to give the dead dignity by making sure they look good in the last clothes they wear
Reading Time:4 minutes
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Mandy Zuoin Shanghai
For many people, two wardrobes stand apart as the most important clothes we will ever put on: what we wear during our wedding, and how we are dressed for our own funeral.
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Fang Fang, a 30-year-old part-time shroud model from Dalian, a port city in northeastern China’s Liaoning province, is breaking taboos and enduring criticisms by modelling burial outfits to help grieving family members properly clothe their dead loved ones.
The undertaker, who has worked in the field since she graduated from college in 2013, tries on all sorts of clothes designed for dead people – from a traditional Hanfu or Qipao to more modern suits – and posts them on Douyin, China’s TikTok.
Fang started modelling the clothes fairly recently and decided it was a worthy undertaking because it is a way to treat the dead with similar respect as the living, if not more.
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“Many of the visitors to our store will not even touch the clothes because it is taboo to them,” Fang said.
“There has to be someone to deal with the clothes … I try them on, so the family can decide whether there is a problem. They can also find mistakes that need improvements which can be fixed later.”
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