'You're empathetic, but there's that distance': A German undertaker in Japan
As Japanese mourners file into the funeral parlor, shrouded in silence and laden with flowers, Felix Steinkemper, dressed in a dark suit, stands ready to assist. It's a scene the 30-year-old German undertaker has witnessed hundreds of times: the open casket, the quiet sobbing, the ...
Signs of ritual pot smoking, possibly part of funeral rites, found in ancient Chinese graves
Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China. In a complex of lofty tombs in the Pamir Mountains — a region near the borders of modern China, Pakistan and Tajikistan — excavators found 10 wooden ...
Magazines explore the inevitability of death and taxes
From this week, beneath the glitter of tinsel and glimmer of outdoor seasonal illumination, the bonenkai (year-end party) season begins in earnest. Amidst these distractions, however, one comes away with the impression that the magazines are devoting more pages to health advisories for staying alive ...
Journey to the afterlife: Indonesia's Toraja live among the dead
Martha Kande's family lived with her graying, shriveled corpse at their home in Indonesia for seven months as they prepared an elaborate funeral that is central to the Toraja people's centuries-old death rituals. "We keep the body in a coffin at home," said Meyske Latuihamallo, ...
An Indonesian was killed when his mother's coffin fell from a funeral tower and crushed him during a service on the island of Sulawesi, police said Sunday. Samen Kondorura, 40, died Friday when pallbearers lost their footing while carrying the coffin up a bamboo ladder ...
Colorado closes funeral biz run by body parts broker after cremated remains turn out to be concrete
Colorado officials indefinitely shut down the funeral home and crematory this week of a woman who runs a side business selling donated body parts from the same building. In its order, issued Monday, the state's Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration suspended operations at ...
Nagano drive-thru funeral home to serve mourners with limited mobility
A funeral home with a drive-thru window will open in Nagano Prefecture on Sunday, allowing mourners to pay their respects without getting out of the car. The operator of the Aishoden funeral home in Ueda said the service is the first of its kind in ...
Buddhist monks chant next to a pink coffin where Dollar's small body is nestled amongst flowers — a $600 final farewell for the Shih Tzu at a Bangkok temple that administers elaborate pet funerals. Dollar's owner, Pimrachaya Worakijmanotham, fights back tears as she takes a ...
Drive-thru funeral service will let Japanese bid an easy and fast last farewell
In a first for Japan, a funeral home operator in Nagano Prefecture will be offering a drive-thru service allowing the bereaved to give their final farewells without having to get out of their car. Kankon Sousai Aichi Group, based in Ueda, central Nagano, plans to ...
Drop-dead beautiful: Japan undertakers show their skill on preparing bodies for the 'other world'
A 23-year-old undertaker won a contest at Japan's biggest funeral expo on Thursday that tested ancient skills in the ritual dressing of the dead. "I practiced every day to prepare for this competition," said a smiling Rino Terai after defeating three other finalists. "I took videos ...
A decade after pivotal legal battle, embalming on rise as Japanese seek dignity for the dead
A documentary television program and the death of a number of close friends led Takashi Uya to find his calling in life — to give Japanese dignity in death. Uya, 40, saw three of his close friends die while he was still in his teens ...
