Every culture has its own way of dealing with death.
Last week in this column, I discussed some of the past and present attitudes toward and practices surrounding Japanese funerals. There is a quiet revolution taking place in the Japanese way of death, and nowhere is this more acutely seen than in the way people in Japan are rethinking the issue of disposal of the body of the deceased.
" . . . Were the smoke on Toribeyama never to fade away . . . would men not feel the pity of things . . . ''