Key Words: micro blog, Lin Dongping, Sina Weibo, dead,
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>> 'Microblogging encoffiner'
Lin Dongping's micro blog posts remind us to live every day as if it were our last.
Lin's series of short obituaries about ordinary people, which he runs under a title from the Confucian lament "how time flies", have been widely followed on Sina Weibo, China's answer to Twitter. He currently has nearly 800,000 followers.
Lin started the page in July 2011 when the sudden death of a former Ifeng.com editor reminded him that those who would never speak again need attention, too.
"I started the account to record ordinary lives," Lin says.
"The idea came like a flash. No ads. No marketing. No help. No greater ambition."
Lin has since written 800 obits. Each is roughly 100 Chinese characters.
The 25-year-old game developer from Fuzhou, Fujian province, gleaned the information from the micro-blog updates of the deceased. In addition to creating eulogies, Lin calls on micro-bloggers to light virtual candles in condolences and give one last poke on the person's page.
He has since earned himself the nickname, "the online mortician".
"There are billions of living people. Losing one is no big deal," Lin says.
"But everyone has his or her own world. And that's a big deal."
He realized this endeavor has changed him.
"I didn't know that people could be so brave and warm in the face of death," he explains.
He was particularly moved by the wishes of a cancer-afflicted female university student who asked everyone to "warm one another's world".
"I cried when I read it," Lin recalls.
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