臺灣最著名的職業哭喪人

Crying on command isn't easy, but Liu Jun-Lin is hired to do it every day, at funerals for people she never knew. She's Taiwan's best-known professional mourner - a time-honoured tradition in her country that may be dying out.

奉命而哭不是一件容易的事情，但是每天都有人僱劉君琳（音譯）在她素不相識的人的葬禮上哭喪。她是臺灣最著名的職業哭喪人，在臺灣這是由來已久的傳統，而這樣的傳統有可能面臨消失。

Crying for a living is controversial, seen by some as the commercialisation of grief, but mourners like Liu say their profession has a long history in Taiwan, where according to tradition the deceased needs a big, loud send-off to cross smoothly into the afterlife.

用哭喪來謀生是一件容易引起爭議的事情，在有些人看來這是商業化的哀傷。但是據劉君琳這樣的哭喪人說，她們的職業在臺灣由來已久，根據臺灣傳統亡故之人需要用大聲的哭喪來把他們平安地送入到後世。

"When a loved one dies, you grieve so much that when it finally comes time for the funeral, you don't have any tears left," says Liu."How are you going to suddenly switch your mood to show all that sorrow?" Liu is there to help strike the right tone.

“當親人亡故之後你會非常悲傷，最終到了葬禮上你已經沒有眼淚了，”劉君琳說，“你怎樣才能做到把你的情緒一下子調到極度悲傷？”於是劉君琳會到場相助，以使葬禮有合適的氣氛。

In earlier times, daughters often left home to work in other cities, and transport was limited, she explains. If someone in the family died, they often couldn't make it home in time for the funeral, so the family would hire what's known as a "filial daughter" to lead the family in mourning.

她解釋說，從前女兒們常常會離家到其它城市裏去工作。當時交通條件有限，如果家裏有人亡故，她們常常不能及時趕到家裏參加葬禮，於是家人會僱傭一些被稱爲“孝女”的人在葬禮上引導家人。

Traditional Taiwanese funerals are elaborate, combining sombre mourning with louder, up-tempo entertainment to fire up grieving spirits.

傳統上臺灣的葬禮是精心安排過的，陰沉的哀悼與喧譁的快節奏娛樂結合在一起以送走悲傷的亡靈。

For the entertainment portion, 30-year-old Liu and her Filial Daughters Band wear bright costumes, and perform almost-acrobatic dance numbers. They do the splits, back-bends, and somersaults. Her brother, A Ji, plays along on traditional stringed instruments.

在娛樂部分，30歲的劉君琳和她的孝女樂隊穿着鮮亮的服裝，表演幾乎像雜技一般的舞蹈。她們做着分叉、後彎和筋斗等動作，她的兄弟阿吉用傳統的絃樂器來伴奏。

Later, Liu will change into a white hood and robe, and crawl to the coffin on her hands and knees. There, in time to her brother's organ playing, she performs her signature wail.

稍後劉君琳會換上白色的喪袍，戴上頭罩爬到棺材邊上，這時在他兄弟樂器的伴奏下她開始她的招牌哭喪。

Her sounds are long and drawn out, somewhere between crying and singing. At home, she demonstrates a typical wail for me. "My dear father, your daughter misses you so much!" she cries. "Please, please come back!"

她的聲音綿長而竭力，有時遊走在哭泣和歌唱之間。她在家裏爲我表演了一種典型的哭泣：“我親愛的爹爹啊，你女兒多麼想念你，”她哭喊道，“請你，請你回來吧！”

I ask Liu how she manages to manufacture tears at will. But she insists all her crying is real. "Every funeral you go to, you have to feel this family is your own family, so you have to put your own feelings in it," she says. "When I see so many people grieving, I get even sadder."

我問劉君琳她是怎樣做到製造眼淚的，她堅持說她所有的哭泣都是真實的。“你去到每一個葬禮上，你會感到這家人家就是你自己的家人，所以你就會把自己的感情放進去，”她說，“當我看見有這樣多的人都很傷心，我就更傷心了。”

With her long eyelashes, dimples, and sing-song voice, Liu seems much younger than her 30 years. At home, she wears an orange jogging suit and sparkly nail polish. I'd sooner believe she was a nursery school teacher than a professional in the grief business.

劉君琳長着長長的睫毛，臉上帶着酒窩，有着歌唱般的嗓音，她看上去比實際年齡30歲年輕得多。在家裏的時候她身穿着一套橘紅色的運動裝，塗着鮮亮的指甲油，我很快就覺得她像是一位幼兒園老師而不是職業的哭喪人。

Funeral director Lin Zhenzhang, who has worked alongside Liu for years, says that's a big part of her appeal.

葬禮導演林正章（音譯）與劉君琳一起工作有許多年了，他說這正是她的引人之處。

"Traditionally, we think of this as a job for women a generation older," he says. "But Jun-Lin is so young and beautiful. That contrast makes people very curious."

“傳統上我們認爲做這樣的工作都是上一代的婦女，”他說，“但是君琳卻是如此年輕美貌，這樣一種反差使人們感覺很詫異。”

Liu's grandmother and mother were both professional mourners. As a young child, she would play outside the funeral homes while her mother worked. At home, she mimicked her mother and older sister as they rehearsed.

劉君琳的祖母和母親都是職業哭喪人。在她的孩提時代，當她的母親在工作時她會在喪家門外玩耍。在家裏時，當她的母親和姐姐在排演時她會跟着模仿。

"I'd grab any object and pretend it was a microphone," she says. "Then I'd pretend there was a coffin and crawl to it."

“我會抓起任何一樣東西把它當做麥克風，”她說，“然後我假裝前面有一個棺材，我就爬過去。”

Both of Liu's parents died when she was young, leaving her grandmother with three children to bring up, and a heavy burden of debt. So the grandmother pulled Liu and her older brother into the family trade. Liu was just 11 years old.

劉君琳的父母在她年幼時就過世了，留下了她的祖母和三個需要撫養的孩子，還有一屁股的債務。於是祖母把劉君琳和她的哥哥帶進了家族的生意裏，那時劉君琳只有11歲。

She had to get up before dawn each morning to rehearse, and often had to miss school for work. When she did go to class, other children would make fun of her job and the strange costumes she wore.

每天早上她在天亮前就要起牀排練，爲了外出幹活還常常逃課。當她去上課的時候，其他孩子會嘲笑她的工作和所穿戴的服裝。

"They'd say, that's so weird, so ugly, you look so stupid!" she says. "I felt really inferior and thought other kids didn't like me."

“他們會說，你做的事情多麼可怕，多麼難看，你看上去多蠢！”她說，“我真的感到很自卑，我想別的孩子不會喜歡我。”

Performing wasn't much easier. Stigmas around death make many people look down on mourners. "Sometimes before we'd start the performance, the grieving family would be very sour when they talked to us," says Liu. "But after we performed, they'd cry and say thank you, thank you, thank you!"

表演也並非容易，對於死亡的不齒使許多人看不起哭喪人。“有時在我們開始表演前喪家對我們說話很刻薄，”劉君琳說，“但是在我們表演之後他們也會哭泣，並且一再對我們說謝謝，謝謝，謝謝！”

That's when Liu realised the real purpose of her job. "This work can really help people release their anger, or help them say the things they're afraid to say out loud," she says. "For people who are afraid to cry, it helps too, because everyone cries together."

這使劉君琳認識到了她工作的真正意義。“我的工作能幫助人們真正認識到他們的憤懣，或者幫助他們說出他們不敢大聲說出來的東西，”她說，“對於害怕哭泣的人們來說也有幫助，因爲每個人都在一起哭泣。”

Mentored by her grandmother, a tiny woman in wire-framed glasses and a tight perm, Liu trained rigorously as a performer, and developed the shrewd business skills that have lifted her family from poverty to prosperity. Liu and her siblings each have their own house, and their company charges up to $600 (￡380) for a performance.

劉君琳的祖母是一個戴着金絲邊眼鏡燙着頭髮的小婦人，在祖母的嚴厲指導下她成了一個哭喪人，並學會了精明的生意經，使她的家庭脫貧致了富。劉君琳和她的兄弟姐妹們都擁有自己的房屋，她們的公司對每次出演的收費爲600美元。

But it's a business in decline, says Lin Zhenzhang, as the economic downturn and simpler modern tastes turn people away from lavish traditional funerals,

但是林正章說這是一個正在衰退行業，由於經濟的不景氣和現代人簡潔的品味使許多人不再舉辦奢華靡費的傳統葬禮。

"The tradition of professional mourners is going to slowly be eliminated," he says. "So people like Jun-Lin are going to have to find a way to reinvent their profession, or find new sources of revenue."

“傳統的哭喪人正在慢慢的消失，”他說，“所以像劉君琳這樣的人要設法找到一個重新創造這個行業的方法，或者找到新的收入來源。”

This hasn't escaped Liu. That's why she has recruited some 20 female assistants. They're young, good-looking women in black and white uniforms, who help funeral directors with embalming and memorial services, and they've brought Liu a lot of attention.

劉君琳也難逃這一關，這就是爲什麼她招聘了二十來個女助理。她們是都是年輕漂亮的女性，身穿黑白兩色的制服，她們在葬禮服務上幫助葬禮導演，她們讓劉君琳操了很多心。

"There was no-one else doing this in northern Taiwan, and it ended up being more successful than I'd thought," says Liu. "Within this industry, I know I need to find niches that no-one else is exploring."

“在臺灣北部沒有別人做這一行，結果比我想象的要更成功，”劉君琳說，“在這樣一個行業裏，我知道我需要去找到別人沒有嘗試過的東西。”

No matter what, Liu says, she won't ever leave the family trade. "This is something my grandmother struggled to build up from the ground," she says."I have to teach others what she taught me, and carry on her tradition."

不管怎樣，劉君琳說她不會放棄她的家族生意。“這是我祖母從無到有艱苦創建起來的生意，”她說，“我要把她教我的東西教給別人，把她的傳統繼承下去。”

譯者：sunset123