A "post-90s" relic organizer's professional consciousness and life and death in her eyes
Our reporter Wang Jingxue
Organize your life, organize your life.
Sika is a Home Organizing Consultant and a Relic Organizer.
At the end of 2021, she founded in Shanghai, perhaps the first domestic brand "Zhai Shu Yi Yi", which specializes in relic sorting and pre-existing sorting services.
On the profile page of the company's official website, she wrote: "A company that loves life. Seeing the love in the world from the structure of objects, through proper arrangement of objects, linking the dead and the living, firmly believing that living towards death is the best way to survive. to live better."
Previously, this girl, who was born in 1990, had been exploring the field of relic sorting for more than two years.
She first attracted people's attention when she went to Wuhan in the spring of 2020 to sort out relics for families who lost their loved ones in the epidemic.
This experience was fixed by director Zhou Yijun in the documentary "Break, Difficult to Leave".
"Do you still spend money to find someone to sort out the relics?" "Why do you do such an unlucky job?"...
Compared with the household sorting and storage that has been gradually understood and accepted, relic sorting is a more niche new career.
Not surprisingly, Sika has been questioned by many.
When given the chance to speak up, she wanted to start by calling for more respect for death.
There is life, there must be death.
Everyone knows that for life, there is nothing more certain than death, but it is inevitable that people will pretend that there is no such thing and give life and death unequal treatment.
"Death" is an unspeakable taboo.
People avoid talking about it, don't want to see it, don't want to think about it, don't dare to imagine it.
Some family members of the deceased are not so serious about the relics, and most things that have no economic value are usually disposed of hastily.
Sika wants to challenge this taboo and pioneer in the blank field.
She wants to tell people that relics are not heavy, not scary and not far away.
She used "tenderness" and "warmth" to describe the incident, but emphasized that it was not as emotional and tear-jerking as some people imagined.
"Sometimes, people will inquire about this profession with a curious eye, and are more interested in whether there is a touching story, but I take it very seriously. To do relic sorting in China, it must be able to solve everyone's real problems. This is not something that can be done with a good heart and delicate emotions," Sika said.
She also mentioned that working in relic sorting in China is very different from Japan and South Korea. Many young people heard about this profession for the first time from the Korean drama "I am a Relic Organizer" which was broadcast last year.
Sika wants to explore a set of relics arrangement suitable for Chinese people to help people have a good life and a good death.
"You're going to be a blue collar"
All changes start from the awareness of the quality of one's own life and the reflection on the meaning of life.
In 2014, at the age of 24, Sika fell ill. After the operation, she recuperated at home for a month.
That was the first time she felt disconnected from society.
Lying alone in bed, she couldn't help but secretly "think about life". If the result is not good and she leaves, what can she leave in the world?
This is Sika's second year on the job.
After graduating from Shanghai International Studies University, majoring in English, she joined an accounting firm as a tax accountant. After that, she crossed into the advertising industry and entered a foreign company.
Both businesses are known for being busy.
It is not surprising for practitioners to work overtime, stay up late, and not eat on time.
"I found that I didn't seem to have anything left to leave... What to leave? I didn't do anything worth keeping for anyone else," thought Sika.
After recovering from her illness, she returned to her busy daily life, and the thoughts of her illness flashed by, leaving only a few traces in her heart.
Until 2018, her 6th year of work.
At that time, Sika had jumped to the Internet giant to advertise.
The work is busy and the salary is decent, but more and more anxiety has accumulated in the heart. While busy with work, I am confused by the value of this busyness.
"I feel like an insignificant screw in a big machine."
There were frequent problems with her body, and then her eyes were also checked for problems, and she had to undergo surgery.
"It's not a serious illness that affects life and death, but your quality of life has suddenly decreased." This illness made Sika truly realize the importance of quality of life, and it also slowed her down.
Looking back, she said that this was an opportunity from God to remind her to think about life in a special way.
"But I still realized it a little late, and I didn't know how I wanted to live until I was 30 years old." Sika said with some emotion: "When we were young, we were mediocrely anxious about how to make money, buy a house, and get married, but those ultimate questions were not. Think about it. It's such a pity that the twenties have passed by like this. People should think about some big issues earlier and rationalize their thinking before they know how to live a better life."
Sika was greatly touched by the encouragement and concern of the doctors during the operation on the eyes.
"Their work is meaningful and can help patients through the most difficult times. I hope I can have a career like them, which is really helping people solve problems. I feel that I need to do a career analysis, and I can't put it off any longer. already."
Sika decided to become a tidying consultant.
Japanese finishing expert Marie Kondo's book "The Magic of Tidying Up Your Life", which sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, made Sika also "hearted".
By organizing things, restarting life and allowing people to live a happier life, which is in line with Sika's focus on quality of life and her need for career development, and she, who loves to remodel rooms, feels that she may have some talent for this.
Act on your heart.
Sika started self-study, participated in training, contacted peers, and did research. In her spare time, she took advantage of weekends and rest time to do free door-to-door sorting for customers... This way, she tested the water for half a year. At the beginning of 2019, she went to the United States to participate in Marie Kondo's workshop. Consultant seminar, passed the assessment, and became the second official registration consultant of Marie Kondo in China.
After that, he resigned and started his own business in one go, and set up his own finishing team.
During this process, Sika received little support.
Organizers were a profession that few people knew about at the time, and sometimes they were understood as a type of cleaning work.
Family members and friends do not understand why Sika, who has a decent job, has to toss to a career with uncertain prospects, unknown income, and not even considered a career.
The mother expressed her incomprehension and tolerance towards her daughter in silence.
She tried to describe her daughter's choice: "You're going to be a blue-collar worker."
No one knows, Sika wants to do more than that.
Since 2018, the year she was thinking about changing careers, what she really wanted to do was to become a organizer in the field of life, and "willing to pay a higher price for this."
It was in this year that Sika learned that the sorting of relics is also a part of the work of the organizer.
Relics are the bridge between the dead and the living
"In my impression, the cemetery that day was very warm." In early 2020, Sika visited a large funeral company.
When visiting the cemetery managed by the company, she saw a group of sculptures showing the process of a complete person walking slowly into the land.
Sika stood in front of the sculpture for a long time, and sent a message to her Moments, mentioning the idea of arranging relics. She was seen by the documentary director Zhou Yijun and called. So, in the cemetery, she talked about her desire to do relics arranging. The original intention and the reason for visiting the funeral company.
Still because of the emphasis on the quality of life.
During the illness, Sika thought about how to "die well". She felt that people should live well and die well. They should not be casual. From how to rescue their organs to whether to donate organs, they all depend on themselves. to decide.
Therefore, she came into contact with the concept of "willed guardianship" in the legal field, and learned that adults with full capacity for civil conduct can negotiate to determine their own guardians. Handle matters such as life care, medical treatment, property management, rights protection litigation and death and funeral.
"This system is great! It should be known and paid attention to by more people." Sika thought that in some countries, people would make a will when they were young; Organize", arrange the destination of your belongings in advance, deal with accidents that may occur at any time, reduce regrets, and reduce the burden on relatives... In China, most people are not used to planning for death when they are healthy.
Sika felt she could help people better deal with death by organizing her work.
She began to study the law, meet people in the legal profession, sit in a group of notaries and lawyers for voluntary guardianship training, visit funeral companies... "I had a gut feeling," Sika said, "that these areas might be connected."
"In the face of death, many of us often act like elementary school students." Sika sighed.
When going into the house to do housekeeping, she sometimes encounters some items of the deceased. "When I encounter things that don't seem to match the client's age and identity, and don't belong to them, I will ask the client. Because sorting The concept of belonging is very important, and how to deal with the item should respect the wishes of the owner of the item, and sometimes these owners are no longer there.” Sika said.
What makes her sad is, "We are at a loss for what our relatives left behind. Most people can't look directly at me, they will feel that they don't know how to talk about these things, they are afraid that I will mind, and I am also afraid that they will mind. Avoidance. It's a bad feeling."
In Sika's view, relics are the bridge between the dead and the living.
In the objects, there are the shadows of the owners and the last message they left: Why are some old photos especially carefully treasured?
Why is the red envelope given by each relative and friend before his death marked with a name, put in an iron box, and preserved so well?
Why do some old people wrap all the items of their wife's mourning hall in plastic bags and write "Dear, go well", but put these things in a place where they can be easily accessed?
"There is emotional logic and thinking behind the items, and they convey some love. But if you don't organize them, you will not be able to receive this part of the love, and some things will not be known in this life." Sika said.
According to traditional customs, most relics are hastily thrown away or burned without scrutiny, and a few objects are kept for condolences.
Sika hopes that people will take relics more seriously.
"We seem to be accustomed to only treat real estate and movable assets such as bank deposits and fund stocks as important heritage, and don't care about other items. You will think, how can human beings be so indifferent? But we see a lot of situations like this."
Some of the funeral industry practitioners she met also felt the same way, saying that some young people nowadays are reluctant to take the time to deal with the death of their loved ones.
Some people will express the attitude of wanting to finish things quickly, and feel that sad things should not be mentioned, which is taboo.
"Why run away?" Sika asked. "Death is something everyone should sit down and talk about. Sharing grief is also healing."
Back in the early spring of 2020, within two days after the phone chat at the cemetery, an article titled "Wuhan Relics" was swiped in the circle of friends, which touched many readers including Sika and Zhou Yijun.
After obtaining the consent of the family members, Sika decided to rush to Wuhan and volunteered to accompany three families who had lost loved ones due to the epidemic to complete the sorting of their relics. Zhou Yijun's team will record the whole process.
This is the first time Sika has implemented the concept of relic sorting.
The objects can't speak, but in the process of sorting out together with the three families, the people who have left are clearly ready to come out from the memories of the objects behind them and their families.
For example, the old grandfather who did not forget to bring a stack of sheet music to the hospital spent a lot of money on a bunch of musical instruments.
I have only told my wife one confession in my life: "I only said this once, I still like you very much." When cleaning up, his wife picked up the broom and swept the floor, swept the floor, and said, if he was still there, he would Grab it and do it, I will never let me sweep the floor.
"Wuhan is now my second hometown," said Sika, who still maintains contact with several families. "Others thought I was here to help, but in fact, I got more help myself: I The tolerance, trust and encouragement of the people I met made me feel that I was virtuous and capable. Getting along with them had a great impact on my outlook on career, life and family, like a baptism. "
To be a organizer in the field of life is full of challenges and not easy.
How many times, in trying hard and painful, unrecognized and self-doubt, this time, Sika really felt that the job she wanted to do had real value.
Even the insomnia that has plagued her since 2018 has been relieved at work.
"Before I came to Wuhan, my motivation for organizing was more for myself, and I was more concerned about planning my life; after that, it was a bit big to say, but I felt that I was not just living for myself, I wanted to really reach the society," Sika said.
What kind of relics do the Chinese need?
"What kind of relics do we Chinese need?"
Returning from Wuhan, this question always haunted Sika's mind.
"The Chinese need the Chinese way of doing things. I contacted the Japanese relics sorting association and found that because of different national conditions, different laws and regulations, different concepts of life and death, and different resistances we encountered, it is impossible to simply copy their practices. come over."
For example, in Japan and Korea, in addition to sorting relics, the work of a relic organizer is often associated with "special cleaning" after the death of a solitary person.
When the person living alone dies, the professional relic organizer who is entrusted needs to clean the site, disinfect and deodorize.
In China, this clean-up work will be handled by the police or the neighborhood committee.
At present, the Chinese people's demand for relic organizers is more out of emotion.
For example, after the death of a loved one, it is too sad to face the relics alone, please ask the organizer to assist in sorting and cleaning the items, provide treatment suggestions, etc.
"But this emotional need is not a rigid need and is difficult to commercialize. As a mature business, we still have to solve more substantive problems for people." Sika said.
The Civil Code, which was officially implemented last year, added a new estate administrator system.
Among the 6 responsibilities of the estate administrator, there is one "cleaning up the estate and making a heritage list", which allows Sika to see a new path for relic sorting in cooperation with lawyers, notaries, neighborhood committees and other estate administrators to complete the inventory of the relics.
Last summer, she was entrusted by the notary office to count the relics of an old man and put this business into practice.
The old man Qi Wansheng was a scholar and had no children. Before his death, he left the house and other inheritance to the carer who took care of him through a bequest and maintenance agreement.
An inventory of his relics took 12 hours, culminating in a 54-page inventory.
Just the hundreds of books he left behind, Sika and his companions had to record, evaluate and search them one by one - not simply how many books there are in total, because some books may have collection value and need to be recorded separately; This book has to be read, because many people are used to folder things in the book.
In fact, some of the letters and photos were found by Sika from the pages.
During the sorting, they found out that the old gentleman also had a living relative, an autistic nephew named "Xiao Ming", from the 63 correspondence between Qi Wansheng and his brother who was far away in Beijing for 26 years.
"I started to become a boy's father at 11:30 on September 6th, and I am asking for your opinion on the name of the child." "It is very sad that such a beautiful child is autistic." I'm not sure what kind of emergency situation will happen to me one day, and if this happens, the child will never know what 'rescue' means, and the tragedy is self-evident." "The child is amazingly beautiful, and it is very fun to be together. It's so unfortunate!!" "I've had enough of the hardships of life... The poor child will not be able to survive in the future. What to do? What to do!"
In 1988, Qi Wansheng's younger brother, Qi Qiansheng, had a son at the age of 51 and had Xiao Ming.
His wife died of illness a few years later, and Xiao Ming was found to be autistic again.
Qi Qiansheng raised his eldest son alone, and often told his brother in letters about the difficulties and pains of raising a child with autism.
In 2011, Qi Qiansheng died at home, and the orphan Xiao Ming was sent to the orphanage.
Because of this relic sorting, the notary office contacted the orphanage and asked volunteers to visit regularly.
This is the first time in ten years that someone has asked about Xiao Ming's situation.
"Besides doing a clean up, what else can we do for Xiao Ming and the two elders of the Qi family?" After obtaining the client's permission, Sika led a relic exhibition to display the family letters of the Qi family brothers and let them and their The cry of the loneliness and hardships of thousands of autistic families behind them was heard by the society, and they also raised funds for public welfare organizations concerned with Xiaoming and other autistic children through exhibitions and charity sales.
"So, I think the sorting of relics is warm." Sika said: "It is a dialogue between people and souls. When sorting out Mr. Qi's relics, I sometimes feel that he is walking around the room, watching When he sat at the table and wrote back to his brother. I also felt that the other party seemed to have a lot to say in the items, and what I had to do was to convey the message he wanted to others-for example, they were worried about Xiaoming- communicate it."
Organizing the relics is to make the living people live better. It can bring some possibilities to the living, let them know the deceased better, and at the same time, reflect on their own lives.
Sika believes that objects carry the flow of emotions between people, and one of the meanings of relic sorting is to convey this flow.
When a client was sorting out his grandfather's belongings, he saw the photos of his grandfather when he was young for the first time, and said, "I always thought that grandpa was grandpa, but now I realize that grandpa is also a man."
"You will realize that everyone is an independent and complete individual. You may not have gone to the heart to understand that your mother and your grandfather are not just the person under the titles of 'mother' and 'grandfather'." Xi Ka said that the work of the organizer has also affected her relationship with her relatives, and she began to open her mouth to ask the elders in the family some questions that they hadn’t asked in the past. What do they think the meaning of life is."
"How many opportunities can life have to influence more people's values?"
After the exhibition of Mr. Qi's relics, the parents of children with autism found Sika to learn about the arrangement of the relics before his death and the arrangement of the relics.
"It's not just these families, there are so many people with disabilities and mental disabilities in our country, as well as a growing number of elderly and young people living alone who may need our help," Sika said.
In the process of her sorting, some families still encountered difficulties in the distribution of the estate. The deceased did not leave a will, and the relatives did not know their specific property details, creditor's rights and debts.
"In the future, they may be able to find relevant agencies to request and authorize us to carry out efficient and detailed inventory." Sika said.
She believes that more and more people will need professional relic sorting and antenatal sorting services.
However, "the future is bright, and the road is tortuous. To be honest, I am often anxious now."
Pioneering in the blank area of rare peers, although Sika decided to focus most of her energy on relic sorting and living sorting, she still has to rely on the income of household sorting to support the team.
She felt as if she had gone back to the beginning of her resignation to start her own business, and even received more and more fierce opposition than then.
Some past clients bluntly said that if she had known that she was going to deal with relics, they would not have chosen their team to clean up the house.
Sika knows that his attitude towards death reflects the depth of his understanding of life.
People need to be able to see death maturely before they can accept the business of relic sorting, and it takes time.
"There will be various blows." She admits that the process is very painful, and she will constantly deny herself. It is difficult for her to explain why she chooses this as her life's ambition. "It's just out of respect and experience of life."
From the perspective of an organizer, Sika believes that, on the one hand, people who are alive should treat the belongings of deceased relatives and friends more properly; on the other hand, as people who will eventually face death, no matter men, women, or children, they should make plans as soon as possible.
She feels that the problem now is not that the public has no needs, but that people in need and she can't find each other.
At the end of last year, Sika was once again caught in the anxiety of how to make relics and living arrangements accepted and made into a mature business.
Inadvertently, she searched the discussion area of the Korean drama "I am a Relic Organizer" on Douban, and saw someone asking if China had this profession. From the discussions of netizens, Sika gained energy.
"The times are really progressing. In the past two years, I have seen more hope. I have come into contact with many young people who are more open-minded, and I have also met old people with advanced thinking who offered to do things before their death. Maybe the time has come. Sika mentioned several times in the interview that he hoped that more young people with ideas would pay attention to this field and join in. "After all, how many opportunities can life have to influence the values of more people?"
In the discussion thread on Douban, Sika replied to the concerns of netizens: "Even if it is a niche or a 'rebellious' profession, as long as it can help people, even if only 0.00001% of our compatriots need us - they may be orphans, It may be young people living alone, it may be the parents of some disabled children, it may be a helpless landlord - we also have the meaning of persevering. We will continue to grit our teeth and work hard!"