When a loved one passes away, we have to decide what to do with their body. For most of us we base our decisions on our customs, our desires and probably the monetary means we have. Most of us would choose mortuary or funeral home and if we want to cremate or have a burial. However, in Japan, there is a new option for our deceased loved ones. This new option is appropriately called a “corpse hotel.”
A corpse hotel still involves cremation, which is pretty much expected with Japan’s population and small land area. However, they like to add an extra twist on the average cremation. Corpse hotels allow family and friends to visit with their loved ones, and when they are not visiting with the loved one’s body, the hotels can provide them with a place to rest. The families can also get together to hold vigils or funerals at an affordable cost in the corpse hotel. Another upside of corpse hotels is providing storage for bodies while they await the cremation process.
Most of us are aware of Japan’s population crisis. There is an increasingly older population, which adds to a steeply soaring death rate. There is a cremation overload problem in this country, and they are searching for creative ways to alleviate this cremation crisis. Japan has the world’s highest cremation rates at 99%, which means that many will have to wait around four days to go through the cremation process. There is also a lack of crematoriums in highly populated areas, which is only expected to make things worse in the near future.
As with many new solutions, there are some who do not like Japan’s corpse hotels. Many residents protest the location of these establishments. They do not want them to be in their neighborhoods and do not want to be associated with them. However, there are still many feel that this is a rather ingenious way to deal with a growing problem that many countries are currently facing. China has recently started to subsidize cremations to deal with diminishing cemetery space, and Hong Kong is building a floating columbarium, which will have the ability of holding the cremated remains of 370,000 at sea.
Cremation is gaining more and more popularity in the US. However, most of us are unaware of the environmental problems, such as emissions and high water usage, associated with cremation and cemeteries. One thing is for sure as long as people keep dying, we are going to have to search for better solutions to deal with their remains.