Would make an interesting recruitment ad....

In today's SCMP there is a brief article (subscription required) about a 'professional mourner'...Leung Siu-foon, aged 76 has been paid to mourn at funerals for 32 years.

... she charges $2,000 for the mourning service, which includes four hours of crying at night plus one hour in the morning.

Unfortunately time is catching up with Ms Leung and there is no body to step into her shoes...it seems time actually caught up with her a few years back, making her voice weaker and therefore unable to wail all the time so she has recorded her wailing...which incidentally she has asked to be played at her own funeral....

"If I die, no one will wail for me. I have already asked my nephews to play my recorded tape for me at my funeral."

Ms Leung started 'helping out' at funerals after she was treated for breast cancer in 1973 and she decided, after all the kind treatment she received from friends and family, to give something back to her friends. Her payback...to help arrange funerals and then as an 'added extra' to mourn the deceased.

Reading the article it struck me as a little strange in Hong Kong that with all the customs and ceremony that is attached with funerals that this profession is not being continued.