Death is no easy matter in Japan
Mail & Guardian
Hidenobu Murakawa stops his tour for a moment and apologises for the interruption. The crematorium is his pride and joy. He helped design it and he clearly loves to show it off. But it's the midday crunch, and he doesn't want to disturb the bereaved.
With 15 000 cremations each year, this sprawling facility on Tokyo's western outskirts is the busiest in Japan. About 40 cremations are carried out here each day, though Murakawa boasts that he has accommodated as many as 94.
"Turnover is everything," he said as a procession of mourners walked back slowly from a row of ebony-and-gold oven doors at the end of a black marble hall, the smell of incense lingering in the air. "We're not a government-run operation. This is a private business."
And, as the crowds attest, business is booming.
Few nations are as rich as the Japanese, or as enamoured of high-tech and the pageantry of life's rites of passage. With precious little space left for traditional graves, innovation -- from more efficient crematoria to virtual graveyards on the internet -- is the foundation on which empires are being built.
