Fond Farewells

By Qiu Hui

Funeral services for animals have been increasing in China

(GETTY CREATIVE)

the Rainbow Planet, a specialized funeral home for companion animals located in downtown Beijing, is not always a gloomy place and once in a while welcomes some laughter.

A Chihuahua the size of two human hands was delivered in plastic bags to the facility around 10 o’clock in the morning. While watching its pure black hair get groomed and nails cleaned up, the dog owner couldn’t help but recount memories of his 13 years with the dog. “I was so fortunate to have a pet as good as he was,” the owner smiled.

Yinghao, founder and funeral director of Rainbow Planet, acts as a steward in such scenes of sadness. His days involve preparing the bodies of the dead animals and helping owners say goodbye to their pets.

Misunderstanding

Funeral service for pets is still somewhat of a novelty in China, and Rainbow Planet has stories to tell in this respect.

“Not so many people recognize this business,” said his landlord when Yinghao applied for rental space in 2021. The landlord also suggested not labeling it a funeral parlor on maps to avoid possible complaints from neighbors because death is considered taboo in local culture.

Yinghao and the living animal staff of Rainbow Planet.

Yinghao had dealt with such complaints before. When he first started offering service in 2019, Rainbow Planet worked in an industrial park far from residences. Within a year, however, they decided to move to a new location due to complaints from neighboring businesses about the wailing heard from the funeral parlor.

Many mistake Yinghao’s service as animal cremation. Yet according to current regulations, bodies of dead animals must be cremated at dedicated sites that meet certain bio-safety standards. The owner of the current location of the Rainbow Planet agreed to rent his property, an independent and easily accessible compound, to Yinghao only with a promise that the facility would not be used for cremation but only farewell ceremonies and customer reception.

Situated in a courtyard with white cobblestone paths, three separate service spaces are utilized for the farewell ceremony, live streaming of the cremation, and ashes storage, respectively. Walls on both sides of the living room are adorned with photos of the deceased and information about their names, age at death, and the owners’ messages. Urns containing the ashes and decorated with their photos are placed in the room called the Hall of Peaceful Souls, where owners visit on special days with the animals’ favorite toys and food.

“Our service is in essence providing an emotional outlet for pet owners.”

Contrasting the heavy, gloomy atmosphere of traditional funeral homes, Yinghao’s design for the layout and interior decoration of the Rainbow Planet feels warm and peaceful.

“People who don’t have pets probably think what we’re doing is ridiculous,” said Yinghao. “Our service is in essence providing an emotional outlet for pet owners.” For curious potential customers, he is always happy to explain the underlying philosophy of pet funeral service in detail.

Solemnity

Calls from clients roll in throughout the day, so Yinghao and his three colleagues work in shifts.

Around three o’clock one morning, a sobbing dog owner called to request transportation for a Doberman Pinscher just declared dead. Yinghao headed out immediately after answering the call. For convenience, his home is only a five-minute walk from the parlor.

According to standard procedure, the pet mortician first cleans up the remains of the animal. Equipped with gloves and skill, Yinghao tried his best to make the Doberman Pinscher look like it just fell asleep. After the dog was cleaned up, it was sent to the farewell ceremony, where the animal and its owner were left alone for a last farewell. In most cases, a mournful cry is heard as soon as the door is closed. Yinghao still remembers a couple who spent the whole afternoon with their pet dog in the room, the longest farewell ever made at Rainbow Planet.

After the farewell ceremony, a colleague took the remains of the Doberman Pinscher to the outer suburbs for cremation. When the dog was placed into the incinerator, the owner watched live in another room at the funeral parlor.

Yinghao considers owners saying goodbye to their deceased pets a solemn process.

From body cleaning to farewell ceremony and cremation, funeral services for pets have some established procedures, but Rainbow Planet distinguishes itself from competitors. Yinghao had the idea of decorating the interior of the two rooms for the farewell ceremony in two different styles:Western and Oriental. Clean and bright, the Western-style room has walls printed in beige and white and decorated with dried flowers and white tassels. In the center of the room are a white bed and a board to write the pet’s name on. Oriental elements in the other room include Buddhist scriptures and the Dharani Sutra quilt, usually a cover for a coffin in funeral ceremonies, on a bed.

Tending to customers’ emotional needs is also part of Yinghao’s job. If a pet owner can’t stop weeping after the farewell ceremony or seems particularly distraught, he hands over a tissue or carefully begins a conversation about the pet. “Sometimes our conversation puts a smile back on the owner’s face,” Yinghao revealed. “To a certain extent, pet morticians also play the role of a psychological counselor.”The ability to comfort a customer who has lost a pet is particularly important for a funeral director, opined Yinghao. “Our service, to be precise, is for pet owners, and it starts the moment they knock on the door of Rainbow Planet.”

Urns containing ashes of the deceased animals in the Hall of Peaceful Souls at Rainbow Planet.

An Emerging Industry

Born in 1996, Yinghao majored in product design and graduated from Beijing Forestry University. Before founding Rainbow Planet, he worked as a furniture designer in Ningbo. After two years, he grew tired of his routine job and wanted to try something different. The idea of working as a pet mortician was inspired by reading an article about the great lengths one dog owner went through to say a final farewell to his pet.

Visitors to Rainbow Planet are seniors or young singles and species vary widely from frog to lizard, snake, and goldfish. After two years in the business, Yinghao sees the relationship between owners and pets evolving and the animals becoming more like family. He was particularly moved by a three-way video call between an elderly lady whose pet died, her daughter, who was in another city, and their pet in the freezer. Before the cremation, the lady delivered a monologue about her happy days with the pet while her daughter sobbed softly from hundreds of miles away.

Yinghao also noticed that compared to 2019 when he was a newcomer to the niche business, funeral service has gained increasing acceptance from Chinese customers. Last year alone, he organized farewell ceremonies for a total of 912 animals.

According to the 2020 White Paper on China’s Pet Industry released on the specialized industry information platform qianzhan.com, 62.94 million Chinese people kept more than 100 million pets in 2020, and both numbers are still rising. The latest data showed that goldfish, turtles, hamsters, and parrots trailed cats and dogs as the most popular pets in China, and that pet pigs accounted for 2.3 percent.

Many are now seeking a piece of the niche market. Statistics from business data provider tianyancha.com revealed that nearly 2,200 pet funeral services are now operating in China, with more than 1,200 registered in 2020, the highest growth in history.

“Before opening Rainbow Planet, I wasn’t sure I could cope with weeping pet owners,” Yinghao admitted. “But after working as a pet mortician, I realize that dealing with the death of companion animals does not necessarily have to be a negative experience. I am always touched by stories of the owners and their pets.”

The stories are both with spoken and written words. One snowy day, a young girl brought in a deceased ferret. “She was silent, all alone in her grief,” recalled Yinghao. “The girl spent long hours in the farewell room and left without a word, which made me feel suffocated, because it seemed I was unable to help her feel better.” His feelings of helplessness persisted until he saw an internet post by the girl a few days later. She narrated how she and her pet ferret met and recounted their days from Anhui to Jiangsu and Beijing. Most young people are not good at voicing their inner feelings and find other means to get an emotional release, opined Yinghao.

“Death is an eternal topic for all species on Earth as is respect for life,” Yinghao added. “Pet morticians often get emotionally involved, and our care for the deceased, empathy for the owners, and respect for life are indispensable.”