Japan - Scattering Ashes

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The two opposite roles water fulfils when it comes to scattering ashes

Scattering ashes on water paradoxically seems to occupy two opposite roles at the same time: a place of special meaning and a somewhere anonymous. This occurred to me after I read two stories one after another of the different roles that water was fulfilling. The first was a report on Shoko Asahara the leader of…

The rise of unclaimed ashes in Japan

The issue of unclaimed ashes in Japan is becoming a problem for the local authorities. A trend mirroring the UK. Whilst there are cultural differences, many of the issues are similar to those in the UK: firstly the weakening of bonds within extended families and thus the willingness of extended family willing to pay; secondly…

Ashes of thousands of unclaimed Japanese WWII civilian casualities

Japan has a legacy of thousands of set of unclaimed ashes that have remained stored in temples around the country since the end of WWII, despite the person being identified. The families of more than 7,400 people have yet to claim ashes stored in eight cities across Japan, many of these victims died in US…

The mystery of the ashes of the Indian nationalist Netaji

Subhas Chandra Bose, known more commonly as just Netaji is a famous figure in the Indian nationalist movement. During the second world war he pursued a number of routes to try and get the British out of Indian, first courting the Germans and then the Japanese however when his military campaign didn’t work, he decided…

Japanese fake ash scattering tourism

Before starting this blog I never thought I would write that as a sentence and even since I still think it is different. Japanese are now taking more funeral planning into their own hands, rather than leaving for relatives to sort. Nothing odd in that the trend is happening elsewhere too, the elderly have…

Make your own ashes: Japanese bone crushing apparatus for rent

Now here’s a franchise opportunity you are unlikely to see on Dragons Den: Rental of bone crushing apparatus. The Japanese tradition is to cremate and then place the bones of the loved one in an urn, I have already posted on this – Japanese cremation. Normally what happens is for the urn to be…

Japanese Buddhist temples criticised for interring ashes sent through the post

Japan is a predominantly secular country although nominally a third (about 90 million people) follow the Buddhist tradition. Now a small number of temples are offering a postal service accepting cremation ashes through the post, which the priests then inter at the charnel house. This has come under some criticism. The reason given is…

Japanese Emperor and Empress choose cremation

The Japanese emperor and empress plan to break from tradition when they die and have chosen to be cremated (burial has been the norm for recent generations) and to have a more modest mausoleum than their ancestors. This is a big deal in Japan, the Japanese tend to by fairly conservative (sorry for the sweeping…

Japanese cremation ashes rituals: Kotsuage and Bunkotsu

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Japanese culture around the collection and burial of cremation ashes is highly ritualised. Shinotism, a ‘religion’ closely associated with Buddhism is observed in Japan and ancestral worship is central to this. The funeral ritual has twenty stages and there are over 20 procedures, we are mainly interested in two of these: Kotsuage which is…

Scattering Ashes in Haiku!

Two November girls scatter his ashes at sea; sad wild waves thunder. Well there you go, I have no idea whether this is good or bad Haiku but judging by the response it was well received. For those not familiar with the term Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, Japanese haiku have…

Japanese companies make money from people’s cremation ashes

In Japan regulators are looking into the appropriate disposal of cremated ash remains. Apparently some companies are tendering to dispose of persons cremation ashes for one Yen each (or about 1 pence!). What do they mean don’t people take their ashes back? Well some do and some don’t it would seem bit like in…