Japan's Innovative High Rise Cemetary
2009-11-6 10:27
This six-story Kouanji Buddhist temple building in downtown Tokyo has inhabitants like no other. With the exception of the resident priest and his family, all occupants of the six thousand plus lodgings are dead and resting in peace in vaults deep in storage.
Rika Iwasaki's husband is packed away in a marble box. His ashes come rumbling out of the inner chambers on a conveyor belt to a dispensing machine. All this takes only a minute thanks to a simple swipe of a plastic card.
[Rika Iwasaki, Cementary Visitor]:
"Here, you don't need to wander around the cemetery to find your family's grave because with the quick insert of a card, your grave is brought to you. It's especially convenient for first-time visitors or friends."
High-rise graveyards are not uncommon in a country where land is scarce for the living and the dead, and cemeteries have long been overcrowded. In Japan nearly everyone is cremated.
For Kazuko Kazawa who lives in Ibaraki, a two-hours drive from Tokyo, having her husband's grave in Tokyo close to his colleagues was more important than anything else.
[Kazuko Kazawa, Cementary Visitor]:
"A colleague of my deceased husband visited here today and that's the benefit of having the grave in Tokyo. No one would ever come to see him if it were in Ibaraki."
This type of cemetery has proven so popular that the temple is already building another one with a capacity of over four thousand "rooms"
— right next door. Chizuko Kosugi has just reserved a space in the neighboring high-rise necropolis for herself and her family.
[Chizuko Kosugi, Cementary Visitor]:
"I don't find the automated system repulsive. I'd rather buy the convenience of this cemetery where people don't need to worry about rain or be bothered by having to look after the grave. Some may say it's too convenient, but I'm fine with that."
Head priest Junsho Watanabe explains that while the convenience is certainly a big selling point, his graves' popularity boils down to their price tag. The square marble boxes can fit the remains of at least nine family members. And the cost is one-fifth the price of a regular tomb in a regular graveyard in the same part of Tokyo.
[Junsho Watanabe, Temple Head Priest]:
"Each family urn can contain up to nine ash envelops, and because of Japan's low fertility rate and consequently diminishing family size, it takes well 70 to 80 years for a family to reach the full capacity of the box."
Twelve years ago, this 400-year-old temple used to look like any other Buddhist temple. Now the original 550 graveyards and tombs that pre-date the building are preserved in the basement.
