Photo: Courtesy of Wei Qingjing

Twenty three-year-old Gothic model Wei Qingjing seems harmless in person.

"One of the skills I learned from my elders was making coffins," says Wei. "The lines of a good coffin match the body shape of an enchanting woman." Wei sits her tiny body into the sofa, and gracefully puts her long pitch-black hair at one side of her shoulders, revealing a big red tattoo on her pale neck.

Born and bred in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a place historically famous for making coffins of good shape and quality, Wei inherited a knowledge of Chinese funeral culture. Starting as a model for a painter at Guangxi Art Academy, Wei has grown into one of the very few "dark" models in China. She believes that Gothic culture does not adore death, but celebrates extreme beauty and love.

"We have a culture to open the coffin and put the dead person's bones into a smaller container three years after burial," says Wei. "For me this is not scary at all. Watching my grandma do it for my grandpa, I knew it was an expression of love."

Painkiller

Working as a part-time model for Painkiller Magazine that covers hard and heavy rock music, Wei finds it hard to keep up the career full-time. "There is always a balance between the 'Yin' and the 'Yang', but the social atmosphere in China is against the 'Yin' because of its negativity," says Wei, "people are brainwashed by the Cultural Revolution, not allowing different things to coexist." Wei calls herself "Poison Bunny" on Douban, a very popular Chinese social networking website. "It's not an oxymoron. A lovely bunny can also be poisonous, and poisonous things can also be lovely as a bunny," says Wei, pointing to a tattoo of an evil-looking bunny on her wrist.

In an album called I Don't Belong Here, Wei dresses as a devil girl, in black, licking a guitar with her bleeding tongue. "My pictures get censored on Douban almost every day," says Wei, "I'm not surprised to see people criticize me, and I seriously don't care." Filled with lines like "I'm born to be cruel", "I feel I'm rotting away" and "I can feel the temperature of death", Wei's personal page is very different from others' and is quite controversial, and so is her lifestyle as a believer in Gothic culture.

"People stare at me on the subway all the time," says Wei, "and my childhood friends cannot believe how much I've changed over the years." Wei's smoky eyes, red lips, pale skin, pitch-black hair, and gloomy style have isolated her from lots of social activities.

"I never make do with things, and I'm very stubborn and unsettling," says Wei, "I have a good idea of the goal for my life, and making friends with people who don't share this goal is nothig more than a waste of my time." The goal Wei talks about is to promote Chinese Gothic culture.

Strange tales

Wei says Gothic culture in China dates back to the famous ghost novel Strange Tales of a Lonely Studio (聊斋志异) written by Pu Songling in Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and Canonization of the Gods（封神æ¼"义) written by Chen Zhonglin in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

"The ghosts and gods in these novels are not violent or creepy," says Wei, "they sacrifice themselves for love and beauty." In the story "Painted Skin" in the Strange Tales of a Lonely Studio, Wei mentions a female ghost putting a painted skin on her face to attract the man she fell in love with. Wei says: "Love is the ultimate cause of this ghost's transformation."

To promote Chinese Gothic culture, Wei also plans to develop this concept into cheongsam, tattoo, and even coffin design. As a Gothic model, the cheongsam is her favorite costume: "it maximizes the femininity of women," says Wei. Instead of being spooky, "female Goth lovers are always very gentle and traditional," says Wei, "people are often amazed by our simple but elegant style."

Working as the first and only Asian tattoo artist in a famous dark art tattoo studio called Last Rites in New York City, Wei's boyfriend Qi Xulong inspired Wei in her decision to introduce Chinese Gothic images into tattoo design.

"It won't just be the Western mainstream images of vampires, beasts and monsters," says Wei, "we'll offer patterns with Chinese styles, such as the portrait of a female ghost in the Strange Tales of a Lonely Studio."

Money

Photographers usually love cooperating with Wei, because she is not just a model, but more like an artist. Wei designs her own shoots, decides what theme the project holds, what costumes and makeup she wears, and how she poses in the pictures. Wei often turns down offers to shoot for famous fashion magazines such as Rayli.

Though not making as much money as mainstream models, Wei maintains a good reputation for being loyal to her own style. "Gothic models don't make much money," says Wei, "because our target audiences are fewer and less active."

Wei works full-time as a makeup artist. She describes it as a side path to realize her life goal to promote Chinese Gothic culture: "To make art, you've got to learn everything," says Wei, "and I have to make a living first. "But there is no way I can do this in China," Wei sighs. In October, she is moving to New York to work with her boyfriend.