Through the eyes of a rookie funeral home worker, this award-winning manga offers a moving portrait of Taiwan’s funeral industry and Han Chinese mourning traditions.
Lin Chu-sheng abandons a prestigious academic future and runs away from home to follow her own path—only to find unexpected guidance among the dead. Entering the funeral profession, she quickly learns that death rarely comes with warning. Even after passing, tangled webs of family ties and personal conflicts remain unresolved, lingering at the edge of every ceremony.
From symbolic burials to soul-calling banners meant to summon the departed, the rituals depicted are at once deeply cultural and profoundly human. They not only honor the dead but sometimes bring the living closer together. At each funeral, the entirety of human experience plays out—grief, love, regret, reconciliation. As the dragon horn sounds and the funeral dance begins, unspoken words and hidden emotions rise to the surface.
In that moment, Chu-sheng comes to a simple, powerful realization: to cherish the rights we have, and the lives we lead, while we are still here.