Source: Global Times [22:15 April 14 2011] Comments

By Lin Meilian

    Are they real? That seems to be the question in many people?s mind the moment they walk into the Beijing exhibition hall filled with motionless humans and animals carefully arranged like art in a museum.

    The answer is yes – they are real skinless human bodies – long deceased and professionally processed. They are some of the main attractions at the macabre "Mysterious Life" exhibit in Beijing, which may remind some of the "chamber of horrors" seen in the 1953 horror film The House of Wax except that these bodies are not encased in wax or disguised.

    "The purpose of the exhibition is to create an educational experience for visitors and promote medical research of the human body," said Sui Hongjin, the man behind the show.

    Sui, who learned plastination in Germany, opened the Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co. several years ago and decided to compete with his former teacher.

    The exhibit, which runs through October 9, contains 310 separate pieces including complete or partial humans and animal specimens. Visitors can peer into the body that were processed and preserved during a yearlong procedure at Sui"s factory in Dalian.

    The eye-opening show may be educational for some, artistic to others, but such exhibits have previously prompted ethical questions around the world including China where tradition guards against any type of disrespectful behavior towards the dead.

    German anatomist Gunther von Hagens invented plastination in 1977 and opened a company called Body World. His first show was in Tokyo in 1955. Body World exhibits have appeared in some 50 museums and venues in North America, Europe and Asia. Von Hagens" work appeared in the James Bond film Casino Royale.

    China"s first public plastination exhibition opened in Beijing in 2004 at the China Architectural Culture Center. The show was met with criticism from those who felt it was disrespectful to the dead.  

    "It is understandable that it takes some time for people to accept new things," Sui said during an interview with the Global Times. "And it is unavoidable that new things bring controversy."

    It is perhaps why this unusual exhibit, jointly organized with the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, the Chinese Society for Anatomical Sciences and the Chinese Medical Association, opened quietly to the public last week without hype or many television cameras. Inside the 2,000-square-meter exhibition hall, just a few visitors were seen during the first day in a weekday afternoon.

On opening day, Sui appeared disappointed and nervous. A visitor approached him and asked if the bodies were real. He smiled and nodded. The visitor walked away, stared at the bodies and murmured: "how could this happen…" 

The figure of a woman in a ballet pose. Photo: Lin Meilian/GT

Human factory

    It begins in his warehouse-style building in Dalian, a port city in Liaoning Province. During an October visit to Sui"s production plant in the high-tech industrial zone of Dalian, workers were busy preparing for the exhibit in Beijing.

    The plain looking building is far from downtown and few people go there. Outside, a sign says: Mysterious Life Museum and Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co. Ltd.

    Inside the garage-like laboratory, a young man was meticulously dissecting a human foot with darkened toenails, inside a brightly lit lab with high-tech equipment. There was no scent in the air and everyone was quietly at work.

    Sun Yonglin, 31, said he has been doing this job for eight years and that it was just a job. "Dissection is fascinating. Everyone is different. You can find new things every time," he told the Global Times.

    Von Hagens first used plastination to preserve bodies by removing fluids and fat from the corpses and replacing them with plastic resin. The German said earlier that each body takes 1,500 hours to prepare for a show.

    Sui declined to talk about his work in detail except that he gets the bodies legally from medical facilities. Most of the corpses are people who died without families or friends to claim their bodies, he said.

    Huang Rui, one of China"s leading contemporary artists who visited a similar exhibit in Japan, told the Global Times that the show is interesting.

"I think it is a good thing that such controversial exhibitions can lead to discussions about ethics," he said. "Meanwhile, I don"t understand why some people like to have a big talk about respecting bodies while they don"t even respect the living."

    Yue Minjun, a contemporary artist in Beijing, said he would never go to such a show.

    "I will be scared if I see those bodies in front of me. It might be eye-catching, but I think it is purely commercial hype."

    Some visitors at the show had mixed views.

    Retiree Wang Deyuan, 60, who showed up on opening day, said he was there to learn.

    "There are lots of books that teach how to live longer, but they could be misleading. I have a better understanding by watching these specimens."

    At the end, Wang leaned over and whispered: "Do you know where they are from? Some are unclaimed bodies and others are executed prisoners."

    Some visitors may assume the bodies are man-made because they don"t produce a scent. Decomposition was halted with formaldehyde and other substances.

    Wang Jian, deputy manager of the company who graduated from Dalian Medical University, told the Global Times that the bodies are treated with the same respect and dignity of loved ones.

    "To dissect with respect, that was the first thing we learned in school," he said.

    Sui"s production plant is not the only biotechnology company in Dalian. Even a local driver found it troublesome to locate. There, the other company, Von Hagens Dalian Plastination Ltd, employs Chinese workers to produce bodies for his company.

    Xu Fei, dean at the Anatomy Lab of Dalian Medical University who runs the donor department at the university, told the Global Times that body donation in China is mired in obstacles.

    "Many families of the donors think it is against tradition and that they would have nowhere to go when the day comes to visit their grave to mourn the dead," Xu said.

    During the past 12 years since starting a body donation registry in 1999, 12,516 people have signed up to donate their bodies. So far, medical schools and research institutions have received 1088 corpses, the Xinhua News Agency reported earlier this month, citing the Beijing Red Cross.

    The relationship between Sui and his German teacher was professional in nature until Sui left and opened his own business.

    Between 1996 and 2001, von Hagens ran a plastination lab in Dalian affiliated with the Dalian Medical University, according to his biography on his website which he uses to sell human and animal body parts. He declined to be interviewed.

Embryos on display in Beijing, left, and a worker talks to visitors, right.Photos: Wang Zi/GT

Plastination

    Sui said he was general manger at von Hagens" company before establishing his own plant in Dalian 11 years ago.

    "We had many different opinions on many things," he said. Sui said he wanted to create a reputation for himself.

    "Whenever people talk about plastination, they talk about von Hagens, but I want to separate his name and plastination," Sui said.

    In 2008, an American TV program interviewed a Chinese medical technician who said he  collected bodies of executed prisoners for Chinese companies, which they then exported to be used in shows in the US.

    The program, "20/20" aired photos of bodies dumped in the snow but the report concluded there was "no hard evidence" proving that bodies of executed prisoners were part of a show.

    Weeks after the report, Arnie Geller, the then-CEO of Premier Exhibitions, which organized the show featuring dead bodies, resigned. A year later, Hawaii was the first US state to officially ban paid exhibitions with human bodies. 

    Due to allegations from von Hagens, Sui filed lawsuits in China and Florida against the German. Sui said the German sees him as a threat to his bottom line.

    Sui said he never lies about the source of the bodies.

    "We record each anatomical specimen we received from medical schools and other research facilities in China, none of them were executed prisoners," he said.

    Sun Deqiang, who worked for von Hagens from 2000 to 2009, testified during the Florida trial last year that his boss paid him to lie to ABC News.

    Being a Buddhist, he said that he had to tell the truth to protect the reputation of China from human rights critics.

    "At that time, von Hagens told me that our Body Worlds exhibitions were facing a grim challenge," Sun said in a telephone interview with the Global Times. "He said Sui"s human body exhibitions have tremendously impacted the development of our company."

    He also said he had received about 10,000 euros ($14,400) as a reward. Von Hagens, 65, who has Parkinson"s disease, declined to comment on the cases and has told a reporter he wants his body to be displayed.