Four female employees carry a coffin to the morgue at Tianfu Funeral Home in Pingguo county of Baise city, Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, March 3, 2011. The four started working at the funeral home after their graduation in 2007, when the county began a preferential policy to subsidize cremations in a bid to reduce the land-guzzling burial custom of inhumation. The funeral home was awarded the national advanced unit for funeral reform after cremation rates rose to 98 percent in the county. China has witnessed a remarkable increase of media attention and social sympathy toward its funeral workers ever since Japanese film "Okuribito" (Departures) won the Oscar award for best foreign film in 2009. In the film, a laid-off cellist gradually comes to taking pride in his new funeral work, acting as a gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the bereaved. [Photo/Xinhua]