Shared Tomb, Japanese 'New Operation'

Tech 2023-05-22 09:27:51 Source: Network

Sharing umbrellas, sharing bicycles, sharing houses.

Sharing umbrellas, sharing bicycles, sharing houses... Nowadays, the sharing economy icon is ubiquitous in people's daily lives. The Japanese even launched a wave of "new operations" - "shared graves".

This "innovative industry" was developed by the abbot of Shinming Temple in Machiya, Arakawa ku, Tokyo, Takashi Odo. Now, this temple has opened 1500 cemeteries for sale, and a cemetery can be shared by up to 6 people.

In fact, before the term "sharing" became widely popular, there was a phenomenon in Japan where "multiple people share the same tomb". For example, in early 2012, the Kohei Cemetery, which can accommodate 40000 people, took a unique approach and created a "tree burial" in the Tokyo Icon Tama area.

The form of "tree burial" is to prepare a joint bone burial hole with a width of 1.5 meters and a depth of more than 2 meters under trees such as the Chinese toon and cherry blossom trees, in which multiple bone ash boxes can be buried for 5 to 10 people are placed. The first phase of the "Tree Burial" project has a total of 500 joint bone burial holes, but more than 8000 people have applied for burial here, far exceeding expectations. In addition, 160000 people have already booked for themselves the second and third phases of the "Tree Burial" project that have not yet started.

As is well known, Japan is deeply influenced by Confucianism. Under the concept of respecting filial piety, the Japanese attach great importance to traditional customs such as burials, tomb feng shui, and ancestral worship. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during his first term in office, returned to his hometown of Icon in Yamaguchi Prefecture to renovate the graves of his ancestors, and would lead a press corps to go to the grave in the crowd during holidays.

So, what made Japanese people become enthusiastic about "living in different blankets and dying in the same cave" with people who are not relatives? In short, life teaches people to compromise and accept change. The increasing aging of the population has led to an imbalance in the proportion of tomb land area to the number of deaths in Japan, and the price of cemeteries has been increasing year by year. According to the National Institute of Social Security Population Studies in Japan, the total number of deaths in Japan between 2010 and 2019 will reach over 13 million, which means the total required cemetery area is 6.5 million square meters, equivalent to 139 Tokyo Dome stadiums. In the island country of Japan, where land is precious, there is nothing more frustrating than this. The emergence of "shared graves" can not only save land, but also solve many problems that cannot be solved due to economic reasons. Secondly, the diversity of social values is another reason for the rise of "shared graves" in Japan. In some cities, same-sex marriage has been recognized by people, and more and more men and women choose to remain single for life. So, the tradition of men inheriting ancestral graves and women burying themselves in their husbands' graves in the past has become less realistic.

According to the latest national situation survey of Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, in Japan, one in five women over 65 is single, while one in ten men over 65 is single. Professor Masahiro Yamada of Central University in Japan analyzed: In Japan in the past, women who were single for a lifetime were buried in family cemeteries, supported by nephews or nephews. However, nowadays, the concept of kinship in Japan is becoming increasingly thin, which forces elderly single women to prepare their own graves. For these women, what they lack is not money, but a companion. I believe that the demand for burying with others will continue to increase in the future

According to Abbot Longde of Dadong, his inspiration for creating the "Shared Tomb" came from a woman with a sexual orientation of the same sex. As she grew older, she began to consider her "ultimate destination" and found it difficult to bear the cost of the cemetery alone. "It would be great if we could bury together with our friends," she said

For the main customers of "shared graves", Abbot Dadong Longde believes that the initial use of shared graves may have been by the LGBT group, followed by attracting elderly unmarried women, and later on, the main customers may have been "urban immigrants" - most of whom have no contact with their hometown relatives for a long time

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