Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death was an unlikely best seller in 1963 that exposed the funeral industry’s exploitation of families at their most vulnerable in search of higher profits. Mitford released a revised edition the book called The American Way of Death Revisited before her own passing in 1996.
Though funerals are conducted in an entirely different way in Japan, the profit motive is universal, so the practices Mitford exposed in the United States also plague Japan. Complaints about these practices have spurred Japan’s Fair Trade Commission to launch a probe of the funeral industry. While the source of the problem is the same as that pointed out by Mitford—an industry that tries to get it while it can during a family’s period of vulnerability—this is exacerbated in Japan today. Society’s aging is causing the market to expand, resulting in intensified competition among the companies that provide funeral services and related products.
A questionnaire survey conducted in 2003 by the Japan Consumer’s Association found that the average cost of a funeral nationwide was 1.5 million yen, or about US$ 14,000. This does not count the 380,000 yen (US$ 3,500) for expenses associated with the wake, or the 480,000 yen (US$ 4,400) yen paid to the Buddhist priest for various services. Thus, the total cost of a funeral for a family is roughly the same as a new automobile purchase.
Some specific practices the Commission cited include extra charges levied by funeral directors for services despite prearranged contracts when the number of mourners exceeds expectations, or the failure to return funds to people who cancel prepaid accounts to cover their own funeral expenses. The Commission examined whether estimates were presented in advance and whether the funeral directors demanded unreasonable discounts from other businesses, such as florists and hearse operators. Their report is expected this June.
As I noted, Buddhist funeral services in Japan are very different from their Western counterparts. The accompanying photo shows mourners performing one of their obligations, which is lighting and offering a stick of incense to the deceased. If you’re interested in a detailed explanation of Japanese funeral services, try this website.
Perhaps the most dramatic difference between a Japanese service and those in the West comes at the end of the funeral itself. Most Japanese are cremated, and the immediate family accompanies the deceased to the crematorium. They witness the insertion of the coffin into the furnace and stay until the process is finished. When the cremation is complete, the family gathers over the ashes to place some of the remains in an urn. One member selects a bone using a large set of chopsticks and passes it directly to another family member, who also uses chopsticks to place it in the urn. While this might seem unthinkable in the West, one Japanese man told me that it brings a sense of closure, and most families feel it is an essential part of the service.
This custom, incidentally, is the reason it is considered bad form to pass food at the dinner table from one person’s chopsticks to another.
Jessica Mitford published an expose of the American funeral business, but Evelyn Waugh satirized it in his novel The Loved One, which was turned into a film starring Jonathan Winters. For an equally irreverent view of contemporary Japanese funerals, the best source is the film Soshiki (The Funeral), Itami Juzo’s directorial debut. It is billed as a comedy, but that does the movie a disservice. The Funeral is available on DVD with subtitles from Amazon.com