JAPAN: Japanese tombs link up with cell phones

Record ID: 233427

  • Title: JAPAN: Japanese tombs link up with cell phones
  • Date: 6th April 2008
  • Summary: LINES OF TOMBS VISITOR OFFERING FLOWERS TO A TOMB
  • Embargoed: 21st April 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAMNU2GGTM29FGC0MI02MISY2N
  • Story Text: The 73-year-old Teruo Oba and his wife 70-year-old Miyoko recently bought a high-tech tombstone for themselves hoping their own gravesite to be well kept and attended by their descendants over many generations.
    The tombstone, called "Kuyo no Mado" or "memorial service window" which went on sale since April throughout Japan, enables bereaved family to keep in touch with their loved ones beyond the grave by using mobile phones to scan bar-coded tombstones and view photos and other information about the deceased.
    A Japanese tombstone maker Ishi-no-koe puts scannable QR codes behind lockable stone doors on the tomb so only relatives with a key can scan them.
    Using their mobile phone displays, relatives can post and view different items that reflect on the life of their departed loved one, such as holiday snapshots.
    In tech-savvy Japan, the square black-and-white codes are already widely used to load maps on to mobile phones, and are usually printed on business cards or restaurant brochures.
    The Oba family who visited their newly-built tombstone for the first time on Wednesday (April 3), said the technology offers them and relatives more options.
    "I bought this a bit unusual tomb because this would make our sons and descendants feel comfortable to keep visiting here and thinking about us when we rest here," said 73-year-old Teruo Oba who held his cell phone over a bar code and got one of their memorial photos on the cell phone display.
    "It's bit of a new approach. We wanted our grandchildren to be able to use it when they visit the family site," added Miyoko Oba, his wife.
    The tombstone also have mirrors behind lockable stone doors on the tomb so that visitors can check through them whether cremated remains stored in a tomb remains clean.
    While in the light of Japan's fast ageing society, the government estimates a funeral industry earns 16 billion US dollar a year and is expected to grow further, the chief priest of a local Kofu temple concerns people's mind is getting away from traditional memorial services as the number of families who visit plots together has kept dropping over the last few decades.
    "Though I do not say that the tradition of visiting ancestral graves has completely died down, in terms of families visiting gravesites, say, grandparents with grandchildren, I think it has gradually been declining," said Junshin Ando, chief priest at Jouonji temple.
    The tombstone maker touts the service as the new way to visit a grave and may be a 21st Century response to declining grave visitors.
    The creator Yoshitsu Fukuzawa, president of tombstone maker Ishinokoe, said that the idea was to create a tomb that would not just be a site for storing the remains of a person, but a place to honour the deceased.
    "Nowadays most of memorial services are being simplified under less than five minutes of just burning an incense and offering flowers. I hope that our tomb will change that and all family will stay around a tomb and talk about memories of the deceased for a long time," he said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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