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High-tech touches to Japanese funerals |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 16 January 2005 |
JAPAN, bursting with the living, has pretty much run out of space to bury the dead.
On top of that, families are increasingly fragmented, leaving no-one to care for the old-style communal plots.
So, the Japanese are thinking of non-traditional ways to deal with death, including virtual graves and scattering the ashes in space.
PACKAGE DEAL
Mr Hidenobu Murakawa runs Toda Mortuary, a crematorium with 15 ovens that are divided into three grades.
For those willing to pay extra, there are two 'A' ovens which have their own private hallway, a spacious area for viewing the remains afterward and various other features.
At the row of eight economy-class ovens, mourning parties pay their respects side by side.
'We try to provide dignity for all,' he said. 'But privacy is a commodity.'
Toda Mortuary even has a row of small apartments for people whose own homes are too humble to host a wake.
It also offers regular graves, graves for groups as well as rental graves at a separate out-of-town site.
Tokyo's Aoyama Cemetery, renowned for its cherry trees and uptown location, is Japan's most famous graveyard.
Since it opened in 1874, the remains of more than 110,000 people have been interred there, including politicians, writers, artists and actors.
Undaunted by prices ranging from 4.5 million yen ($70,890) to 10.3 million yen, several thousand people applied when 50 plots were made available last year, the first such offering for the general public since 1960.
In contrast, it costs just under US$10,000 ($16,000) for the plot and ceremony in the US or Britain.
'Only one in every 61.8 applicants was chosen for the smaller plots,' said cemetery manager Chikako Ueno.
This means it's roughly twice as hard to get a plot in Aoyama as it is to get accepted to Harvard University.
Forced to explore other options, the Japanese account for about half of the 100 or so people whose encapsulated remains have been rocketed into space.
For those who live far from the family plot, websites offer virtual graves.
SCATTERING ASHES POPULAR
The idea of scattering ashes is catching on - one-fifth of all Japanese have taken to it.
A group of funeral homes recently bought an uninhabited island exclusively for ash dispersal and tours are now available for people wanting to scatter ashes in the waters off Hawaii.
In 1991, the government legalised 'natural funerals', a euphemism for the dispersal of ashen remains at sea or in designated hills or wooded areas.
Toda Mortuary provides this service too. In an immaculate room not far from the crematorium, Mr Junya Matsumoto, his sister-in-law and her son stand by a table upon which rests a steel bowl of ashes and bone fragments.
Bowing, an attendant pushes a button and two tinted glass doors open up to reveal a machine that looks something like a large milkshake maker.
The machine, called a pulveriser, quickly reduces the remains to a fine powder - a prerequisite for dispersal under Japanese law.
'My mother wanted to be scattered over the Pacific,' Mr Matsumoto said. 'Many Japanese still aren't comfortable with this sort of thing. But it was her wish.'
LONG CEREMONY
Despite all the high-tech touches, Japanese funerals are steeped in ritual.
The deceased is usually taken first to the home and put back into bed - with head pointing north - for a day or two. A wake follows, often at the home, with a great deal of sake drinking by black-clad friends and relatives.
The much more sombre funeral is presided over by a chanting priest, and guests offer incense before a chrysanthemum-covered altar.
After cremation, relatives use chopsticks to transfer the bones into the urn, which is kept on display at home for another 35 days before being buried.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,81053-1,00.html |
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