Hong Kong Stories

Silent．Body (35x5)

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NG Kwan-lun (Pasu) has a particularly uncommon profession, he is an embalmer. In Chinese society, coming across the deceased and handling bodies are traditional taboos after all. Therefore, such profession of his is indeed beyond the understanding of ordinary people, which has inevitably drawn misunderstanding and uncanny attention. However, Pasu stands aloof because he has his own mindset in this regard. Pasu is currently the Manager of the Dissecting Room at the Faculty of Medicine at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The bodies handled by him and his team every day are mainly provided to medical students for dissection, education and research purposes. For over ten years, Pasu has treated more than a thousand bodies without any sense of fear because he considers “the process of handling bodies an inward cultivation which allows me to understand death better and enrich my way to perceive life.” Although the mainstream voice of society reckons that Chinese must keep the bodies of the deceased intact; and death should be a taboo subject, Pasu raises an adventurous idea - "Silent Teacher" Body Donation Programme. Since 2011, he has been dedicating to implement this programme at CUHK by which he delivers the message of body donation to different sectors of society with novel and exceptional methods. Pasu’s concern for death stemmed from his good friend’s suicide, pushing him to contemplate life and death again - “From death, life is seen”. Pasu and his like-minded wife Winnie surmount traditional taboos step by step and endeavour to implement life and death education, with a view to turning marginal ideas about death into mainstream gradually, drawing more people to rethink the meaning of life and death.