Life Education for Real?The Human Body on Exhibit and Film

A mother and her two junior-high-school-age children stand at the box-office window, preparing to enter the exhibition. Unable to contain herself, the mother asks yet again, "Do you really want to see this?" A group of vocational high school girls about to enter stare wide-eyed at the promotional poster and ask each other furtively, "Is this going to be really gross?"

Upon entering Body Worlds, which could be called the world's most provocative exhibit involving the human body, visitors are bound to feel some trepidation. This is understandable given that they will be confronted with 200 exhibits, all of them anatomical specimens crafted from real human bodies, including 25 complete corpses.

For those who have generously given of themselves as "silent anatomy teachers," medical students and teachers personally bear their coffins to their cremation, expressing deep feelings in letters that express profound remembrance.

Life-like, yet artificial-seeming

Stepping into the exhibit one is faced with 25 anatomical specimens right out in the open, engaging in such lively activities as playing chess, being deep in contemplation, skiing, fencing, and hanging from a trapeze.

The first specimen upon which the eye alights is a kind of "Mr. Universe," who could well serve as the ideal spokesman for this exhibit. He was a Londoner, 180 centimeters tall and 70 years old when he died, and the first to undergo a public, pay-to-view autopsy in 2002 at the hands of self-proclaimed "corpse artist" Gunther von Hagens in that same city. With his chin pointed ever so slightly skywards, with one hand pointing to the heavens and the other pointing to earth, he has been situated to manifest the beauty of human musculature.

His hand, with muscles and bones stripped away, is a ruby-red, coral-like network of blood veins, leaving viewers gasping at its exquisite beauty.

Without the horror of dripping blood or the nauseous stench, with the muscles and skin cut back layer by layer, this anatomical specimen rests under the bright lights and lush botanical backdrop of the exhibition. Here, in the company of the attending crowds, an office worker who has come by herself exclaims, "This isn't as scary as I thought!"

For those who have generously given of themselves as "silent anatomy teachers," medical students and teachers personally bear their coffins to their cremation, expressing deep feelings in letters that express profound remembrance.

Health education?

Up till now, explorations of the body's microcosm as well as medical dissection have remained the specialized domain of scientists and medical doctors. This exhibit seeks to break that monopoly. Von Hagens feels that, through these anatomical specimens, everyone should be able to come to a deeper understanding of their own body's structure, and thence to a renewed love and cherishing of that body.

Seen from that perspective, one might say that health is the real theme of Body Worlds. Roger Kao, assistant public relations manager in Taiwan for the exhibition's organizers, Korperwelten AG of Switzerland, says: "We hope people come to understand what the real contents of their bodies are, and the effects of illness on the organs. Thus we focus on the contrast between healthy and diseased organs."

For example, a chess-player, chin propped in hand, has had his entire back opened up for the purpose of allowing viewers to understand and reflect on the communicative functions of the spinal nerves. During a visit, Academia Sinica vice president Ovid Tzeng even made motions as if he were sitting down to a game of chess with him. In an exhibition case displaying the organs associated with breathing, viewers can see the vivid contrast between the blackened, filthy lung of a smoker and the pristine lung of a non-smoker.

According to an overseas poll conducted by the Korperwelten AG, half of the audience said that they would pay closer attention to their own health, and one-fifth of the audience said they would be willing to donate their own organs as a result of seeing the exhibit. In Taiwan, of the more than 200,000 people who had visited the exhibit by mid-July, over 4600 signed organ donor consent forms-quite an achievement.

Nonetheless, in looking at the comments left behind by exhibit-goers in Taiwan, one discovers that two-thirds felt that there was too little documentation accompanying the exhibit, a factor that prevented a deeper understanding of the human body. Many had come to the exhibit, it seemed, for the sheer spectacle of it.

Indeed, there are points of difference between Eastern and Western views of life, death, and the body. Western thought posits a sharp break between life and death, when all things return to God, and Descartes further proposed a duality between mind and body. The body is thus reduced to the status of an instrument, and using a cadaver as a learning tool is not seen to violate that basic duality.

In contrast, Eastern culture advocates values such as "sacrificing to one's ancestors as if they were present" and the idea that "the body and mind are one." According to this view, the human body is a medium containing the co-existent body, mind, and spirit. When an ancestor dies, that person's spirit remains present among the descendants, which is why it is imperative to bury the entire body with due ceremony. Popular beliefs hold that violation of an ancestor's corpse results not only in complaints delivered via dreams, but also impacts the subsequent fates of the descendants.

"Generally speaking, life education in the West tends to focus on end-of-life care, while life education in the East focuses not only on that dimension, but also on lifetime and after-death care," says Leu Ying-jong, a life education instructor for many years and vice chairman of the board of directors of the Chinese Society for Funerary Education.

In caring for the aged, whether by helping them turn over in bed or assisting with their cleaning, one comes to a realization of the inevitability of decay in life.

"Deceased person," or "corpse?"

Since ancient times, people in the East have for the most part believed that the soul does not perish after death. Egyptians developed mummies, and Taoists in China pursued longevity and deathlessness through alchemy. Even the Buddhists, who viewed the human body as a stinking sack of skin, took bodily incorruptibility as a sign of successful cultivation.

"To people in the East, a corpse is not just a relic, but signifies a connection with the deceased person's soul. All beings grieve for the death of their fellow beings, and we should thus show respect and mercy when dealing with others' bodies," points out Lin Ku-fang, who teaches Zen practice and is the head of the Graduate Institute of Art Studies at Fo Guang University. That in the East, a corpse is considered a "person" can be seen in the use of embalming medicines to preserve the body of a national leader for posterity, in practices such as publicly displaying a body, flogging a corpse, or destroying a tomb so as to cause unrest for the deceased.

"To call a lifeless corpse 'the deceased' is to suggest that at one time it was a 'living person,' and that there is indeed a relationship between the deceased and us, who are among 'the living,'" says Assistant Professor Peng Hsuang-jun of Taipei Medical University's Graduate Institute of Medical Humanism. Peng, who has seen Body Worlds in Germany as well as in Taiwan, opines: "We should be paying respect, and not simply playing spectator, to those who have died."

Lin Pen-hsuan, assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology at Nanhua University, reminds us that in this extremely commercialized world, people have moved from viewing the body as taboo, then opening up to an acceptance of it, to seeing that it can be manipulated and played around with. From beauty treatments and body sculpting to sexual promiscuity, the body is often packaged into a variety of discourses and commercial ends. Is there no escape from all of this, even in death?

This is why even though Gunther von Hagens stresses that all of his anatomical specimens were obtained legally, many still have doubts about using human bodies in the context of a moneymaking exhibit. Some even fear that this behavior may encourage a wave of commerce in cadavers.

The Body Worlds exhibit arrives in Taiwan, and through the visual shock of seeing actual human specimens on display, offers up a deeper exploration of the anatomical sciences.

An incomplete perspective

Research in the field of life education, which originated in the West three decades ago and has been established in Taiwan for over ten years, stresses end-of-life care, that is, care in the interval between the onset of grave illness and that of death.

Leu Ying-jong observes that the rise of life and death studies and life education is a reflection of the modern "confrontation with aging, sickness, and death at a time in which opportunities for 'natural' encounters with death have almost vanished completely."

In traditional agrarian society, an infant was welcomed into the world by a midwife in its own home; after birth, the baby slept in the same bed as its mother. The elderly stayed at home as they aged, grew ill and died. Upon death, children and grandchildren would mourn through the night, and the body of the deceased would remain at home. Most cemeteries were situated on a small hill within sight of the village, and were often even playgrounds for the children.

In contemporary society, life and death have moved from being centered around the family to being handled by professionals, from being something human to becoming something mechanized. People have few opportunities to encounter birth or death, and to plumb the mysteries of life. On the one hand, this unfamiliarity with the basic processes of life frequently results in a nameless fear. On the other hand, people are surrounded by simulated death in violent movie killings as well as video game combat, which result in a greater feeling of distance from and desensitization toward death.

These sentiments are deeply felt by a management-level civil servant who took unpaid leave to care for his disabled, bedridden father. Whether cleaning up his father's feces and urine, removing mucus or turning his father over in his bed, this person has not shirked from allowing his daughter to observe and help out. While in the beginning she felt understandable feelings of disgust and fear, as she gradually learned from her father, she began to be able to look upon bodily decay and death with equanimity. When the man's college-aged nephew came to visit his grandfather, he saw his uncle cleaning up after him. Shocked, the nephew promptly took to his heels.

"The modern world that people encounter and that our children see has been filtered to such an extent that it's not possible to see the complete picture of reality. Birth, aging, illness and death have all been sanitized in modern life, and the resulting ignorance and desensitization leads to cruel behavior," says Shih Chao-hui, assistant professor at the Institute of Religious Studies at Hsuan Chuang University. This is also the main reason why Shih advocates the showing of the film The Hand of God in schools.

The body can be a malodorous sack of skin, but it can also be a "silent anatomy teacher" that instructs one about the body and life, grasping and letting go, all lessons of a lifetime.

Reality eroding away?

In fact, The Hand of God has for many years been shown in military training and nursing classes in Taiwan. Last year, the Faculty of Theology at Fu Jen Catholic University obtained copyright privileges to the film and, with a variety of backers, issued more than 100,000 copies of it.

On April 9 of this year, in a practicum as part of a life education course at the private Dongshan High School in Taipei City, a professor showed a portion of this film in the context of a sex education class. The film shows footage of a roughly five month-old fetus being manually dismembered, with its body pieces being reassembled on the operating table to ensure that no fetal matter remained in the mother's body. The film also includes many confessions of regret from doctors who had performed abortions and women who had undergone the procedure.

When this classroom activity was made public in the media, it stirred up debate between the Catholic Church, which is fiercely opposed to abortion and advocates an infant's "right to life," and women's groups, who stress a woman's "right to choose" in matters concerning her own body. With each camp holding an opposing view, real communication has been difficult. But what can be discussed is whether or not this particular film provides a "realistic" portrayal for use in life education classes. And how should we regard this kind of life education by "shock tactics"?

In regards to whether the film's depictions are realistic, Su Chien-ling, chair of the board of directors of the Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association, comments: "The biggest problem with this film is that it presents outdated, biased information." Su explains that most abortions are performed in the first trimester and not, as the film shows, in the second trimester. She is also critical of the assumptions that the film makes, as well as the moralizing, chastising tone of its narration, which she terms a kind of moral "corporal punishment." The net effect of all this, she says, is to distance and estrange women from their own bodies.

Dean Louis Aldrich of Fu Jen Catholic University's Faculty of Theology (which made the film available) retorts: "Does this then mean that first-term abortions are any less cruel? Offering up a view of a second-trimester abortion in the film simply lets viewers more readily see the fetus as a living being." Responding to criticisms from medical doctors that this method of cutting up the fetus, known as the Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) technique, is outdated, Aldrich offers 2003 statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show that 96% of second- and third-trimester abortions in the US were performed by means of D&E techniques.

As for questions raised by women's groups, Shih Chao-hui, who also supports the pro-life position, acknowledges that facing up to the "realities" of abortion may indeed seem like a cruel thing to subject audiences to. And yet, she asks, are not modern terms such as "genetic health," "termination of pregnancy," and "induced abortion" simply linguistic traps designed to beautify the act of abortion?

Modern society has become so professionalized that contact with birth, aging, sickness and death is consigned to the management of hospitals, foreign workers, and the funeral industry. This causes people to become distanced from death, and as a result ignorant and desensitized towards it.

A true view of the body

Whether speaking of exhibits of human bodies or abortion films, what is clear is that people have conflicting and confused views on such matters of ultimate concern as life and death. What is the true nature of life? How is it manifested? Differing views abound.

The well-attended Body Worlds exhibit shows how, with the aid of technology, the human body can be preserved indefinitely, possessing the same beauty as in life. But will the sight of these anatomical specimens inspire viewers to cherish the "body" all the more, or will it drive them to seek out "life" everlasting?

"Our bodies are changing and decaying every minute and every second. People don't see this, but instead persist in loving their bodies," says Shih. Buddhists who wish to break free from their physical desires can engage in the Buddhist practice known as the "contemplation on impurity." This set of practices ranges from viewing a decaying corpse, in the imagination or in reality, watching as it turns from blue-green to black, rots, is infested with worms, and is reduced in the end to a pile of white bones. Witnessing the changes undergone by the corpse, the observer is no longer entrapped in desires.

Taking the inquiry a step further, even if decay is a reality of life, is every person meant to face up to that naked truth? Shih points out that since every person possesses a unique inborn nature and a different capacity for handling such realities, there is a need for individually tailored instruction, whether in the scientific display of anatomical specimens, or in the religious contemplation on impurity, in order to prevent such efforts becoming counterproductive.

Says Lin Ku-fang: "Bitterness and joy are inevitable features of life. Sometimes one feels fear; other times one feels the color and richness of life. Life education allows people to see human existence in both its richness and its inevitability. This should bring reflection, not the attempt to artificially beautify life. Throughout this process, it is not necessary to make people feel disgusted or nauseated, or even drive them to seek escape from such realities."

With regard to the shocking nature of both the Body Worlds exhibit and the abortion film, all of the above scholars agree that without accompanying documents, lectures, explanations or discussions to allay audience anxieties, simply relying on what is visually apparent will not suffice to reveal the true meaning of life education. Instead, such events may lead to further confusion of public values and errors in understanding. This is where their real concern lies.

The reality of life also includes a violent and bloody dimension, but how many modern-day people have seen the actual butchering of chickens, ducks, pigs and cows?

Nameless? Or remembered?

What does life education take as its ultimate concern?

Back at the Body Worlds exhibit, all of the specimens on display have had their faces peeled off out of "privacy" concerns. Here, each human body is but a cadaver, with neither name nor biography. Dr. von Hagens hopes that people can get beyond the sensationalism and arrive at an objective and rational observation and appreciation of the human body's internal organs, skeleton, muscles and tendons.

However, one person who had seen the exhibit had this to say in an online comment: "From those who would guide us towards an understanding of these anatomical specimens, what I would really like to find out is: Who were they? What were their occupations? Was the fencing cadaver once a fencer in real life? What is the story behind the worn-down joints in his back?" This person felt that the eccentric presence of Dr. von Hagens himself had dominated the exhibition to the point that these "anatomical teachers" themselves were obscured.

Leaving the crowded Taipei exhibition hall behind, on the serene eastern coast of the island, nearly 200 cadavers have been given up as a silent offering so that, in their very physicality, they might teach humanity. At the medical school of Tzu Chi University, there is an instructional cadaver for every four students, among the lowest such ratios in the world, and the university has donated over 250 more cadavers to other medical schools. More than 14,000 people have signed consent forms to bequeath their bodies to the university on their death. How has Tzu Chi University persuaded so many Taiwanese, who generally are accustomed to keeping the body intact after death, to make such generous sacrifices of themselves?

From Great Giving Hall, where the medical school is located, one can look west to the verdant Central Mountain Range, east to hanging gardens replete with flowers and trees, and north to Still Thoughts Hall, the spiritual symbol of the Tzu Chi Foundation. "Master Cheng Yen instructed us that our 'silent anatomy teachers' [those who have donated their bodies] should be given the best views," says Chang Jung-pan, a lecturer at Tzu Chi University who also oversees the body donation program.

These 'silent anatomy teachers,' having passed through preservative treatment, are housed in a low-temperature holding chamber, lying under coverlets for the deceased and listening to the constant strains of Buddhist scriptures being chanted and sung. There they await the time when they will illuminate students' understanding of the human body. In the dissection room are displayed large portraits and biographies of each 'silent anatomy teacher.'

It turns out that in the summer break before a particular body is dissected, the students are required to first visit the home of that 'silent anatomy teacher' to personally express their gratitude to the deceased and their families. At the same time, the students collect photos and the information needed to write out the life story of their 'silent anatomy teacher,' so that they will be able to view as a human being the one whom they will spend a semester in studying. At the end of the anatomy course, the university requires the students to personally stitch the cadaver back together, and afterwards to clothe the body in a clean long robe.

In the end, when the 'silent anatomy teacher' is placed in the coffin, the students offer up a letter and a bouquet of flowers that will be transformed by the burning fire into a limitless offering of thanks and blessing. After the cremation, a portion of the deceased's ashes are placed in a colored glass urn and placed in Great Giving Hall, where they will be offered to in perpetuity.

One student offered up these words of thanks: "I will not, dare not, forget your face, your head, your body, your limbs, your scarlet heart and crimson veins. With your own two hands, you pulled me into the field of medicine. From this day forth, with the strength that you have given me, I shall use my own two hands to do battle with the demons of illness and pull those who are ill back into the realm of health and life."

Even when no longer imbued with life, these silent teachers, by being dissected, have allowed medical students to come to an understanding of the human body. Even though their bodies still perish in the end, they have taught people the meaning of undying life. It seems, then, that the reflections offered up through life education are only beginning to reverberate....

Birth, old age, illness and death are its inescapable faces, and await each person's own encounter and realization.