In death, as in life, Japan is a crowded place. The country’s graveyards are crammed. With an ageing population of 125 million packed into a land the size of California, it is running out of room for humans, alive and dead.
But ancestor-reverence is strong. So mausoleums are building increasingly high-tech crypts to solve the problem. At a 400-year-old Buddhist temple in Tokyo, a swipe of a card starts a conveyor belt that brings the ashes of a dead relative to a loved one. One customer says, “You no longer have to wander around a cemetery to find your family’s grave – the grave is brought to you.” There’s room for 100,000 remains in the temple’s walls. Places are going fast.
Others are offering revolving graveyards and virtual tombs on the internet. Meanwhile, Japan’s Government has come up with cheap lockers. To the Japanese, once you’ve had your time here, it’s rude to continue to take up too much space.