By Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-23 07:17

SHANGHAI: Some might consider her work morbid, but Jin Peiji, a makeup artist for the dead, approaches her charges in the same way she would any living person.

"They were all people once, and I respect them, just as I would if they were still alive," the 24-year-old Shanghai resident.

Jin, who works at a funeral parlor in the city's Minhang district, is also the youngest first-time deputy to the Shanghai people's congress, which opens tomorrow.

Jin said she chose to study funeral services partly because of her grandfather, who died when she was nine.

"His body was disposed of carelessly," she said.

"The funeral home didn't provide a proper service.

"I thought at the time that he should have left us in a more dignified way."

Despite her confidence, Jin said her legs were trembling when she applied makeup to a body for the first time.

"I was asked to work on a body on my very first day," she said.

"My boss showed me how to dress the body up and asked me to apply the makeup.

"I was terrified but I didn't dare to show it because I wanted the job."

Jin said she remembers clearly all the bodies she worked on in her first few months in the palor.

"I was so afraid to make any mistakes and lose my job, so I examined every body very closely," she said. "When I closed my eyes at night - their faces came to me.

"I was so scared I had to take sleeping pills at times."

One day, Jin was asked to work alone on a man whose body had been deformed in a traffic accident.

"When I pushed the gurney through a long and dark corridor, I had to keep telling myself that I was a good person and ghosts, if there are such things, would not hurt me," she said.

"I regard every one of the bodies I deal with as a real person who once had a life. I want to make them look as beautiful as they were, to help ease the pain of grieving relatives."

In 2005, Jin was named as one of several "Lovely Minhang People", although she is still amazed at being given such an accolade.

She is currently preparing for the upcoming congress.

"I'm planning some suggestions on how to improve people's livelihoods, as well as funeral services."