Preparing the dead for their journey to the afterlife is hardly the profession of choice for young educated women like Angjolie Mei, but the vivacious funeral director shares why she finds purpose in the business of death.
When I met Angjolie Mei, the 30-year-old funeral director of Ang Yew Seng Funeral Parlour, for a chat at the Starbucks at Playground @ Big Splash, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
After all, my only encounters with people in the funeral industry were under gloomy circumstances and mostly with gruff, tattooed elderly men with cigarette in hand, so imagine my surprise when a comely woman with big eyes, lovely locks and flawless skin, and dressed in a pretty white sheath dress waved excitedly at me from a distance.
I was still gawking slightly when she shook my hand and warmly introduced herself. There was absolutely nothing about her that hinted at her profession. From her eloquence to her charisma, every facet of her personality was so unlike any funeral director I had met in the past.
“People are always surprised when they fi nd out what I do,” says Angjolie with a guffaw when I told her that she didn’t fi t the bill of a funeral director at all. Not unlike a woman her age, Angjolie not only has a healthy social life, but also takes salsa classes because she loves to dance and wants to live life to the fullest. “Being in this line of work makes me embrace life every day. I don’t know when I may go, so I try to lead a very full life. I hug my mum every day and tell her I love her. Before I joined my mum in running my father’s funeral business, she was concerned that if I worked in this industry, I’d separate myself from the world. But I feel that it’s true only if you believe so,” she says.
TAKING ON DEATH
Angjolie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in economics and psychology from the National University of Singapore, and worked as a management trainee in a shipping and logistics company upon graduation. However, when her father, Ang Yew Seng, passed on suddenly from colon cancer in 2003, she immediately quit her job to help her mother run her father’s 30- year-old business. “My mother had been helping my father with the business all these years, so she was very vulnerable when he died,” she says poignantly.
The second of four children – three girls and one boy – Angjolie’s two sisters help marginally with the family business, but are looking to expand their career beyond the funeral industry. Her brother, who’s 16, is still in school.
She subsequently left the business to become an independent financial advisor, helping out with the business intermittently.
After four years, she felt a calling to return to the funeral industry. “I did very well during my four years in fi nance and many thought it a pity that I was leaving. But I felt I had a bigger purpose in life.
“In April 2008, I went to the Asia Funeral Expo in Macau, my fi rst time at a funeral conference. The talks on death care in various countries were really an eye-opener and made me realise that there’s so much room for improvement here,” says Angjolie.
TEXT JUSTINA TAN PHOTOGRAPHY WINSTON CHUANG ART DIRECTION SHERRY LEUNG HAIR & MAKEUP POURLY TAN
