05
Jan 2016
JAPAN: BUSINESS OF DEATH
I know it’s already late, but let me and my SBE team greet you “Happy New Year!” May you and your family have a blessed year ahead and more years to come… OK, today I have a super interesting article. It comes from Japan. Japan is full of many interesting things, that are sometimes other people won’t think about. Last December, it held a trade show with “Life Ending” theme. Let’s take a look of what’s inside the Japanese business of death!
Attendee looked at the funeral altar
Shukatsu
For the Eastern culture, speaking of death is actually taboo. Some people believe, if you discuss about death or plan your death, you actually cuss someone or yourself to die. Well, it’s a traditional old people belief.
Anyway, the world has changed! It’s not taboo anymore, but it has become a trend. In Indonesia, there’s a cemetery, where you have to invest now for your ‘future’ house. Many people flocked to book their graveyard, not only for them, but also for their family, so in the future, they can be buried together in one block.
San Diego Hills Jakarta Cemetery
“Life Ending”, What to Prepare?
Swarovski’s Urn Vase
This “Life Ending” trade show is held in early December for 3 days. It drew 220 companies exhibiting their businesses related to death and more than 22,000 visitors attended the trade show. The products that had been displayed included grave stones, hearses and balloons to carry ashes to the sky, while professional encoffiners held a competition for their skill in changing dead people’s clothes.
Booth for the ‘future’ Suit and Dress
Based on research firm Yano Research’s data, it shows that the industry has grown 7 percent from 1.83 trillion yen in 2011.
Frame Photos Booth
Inside the Hearse
Yahoo Japan started Yahoo Ending last 2 years. It lets users set up a free electronic memorial for themselves after death, handles their online data, documents and photos according to their wishes, and sends final e-mails stored in Yahoo’s servers to family and friends after death. Yahoo doesn’t disclose subscriber numbers other than that they’re in the thousands, mostly people in their 30s and 40s paying 180 yen a month to keep their final e-mails stored, and it hopes to raise it to tens of thousands soon.
Kokuyo Co. , yeay, my favorite stationary brand, has sold half a million 1,550-yen “ending note” notebooks for the past 5 years. Not only the elderly, but people in their 20s and 30s are using the books to record bank accounts, funeral wishes and other necessary information in the event of their deaths in an accessible place for others to find.
Free Trial: Coffin?
Aeon offers coffin free trial for its potential buyers at its malls and will sell their funeral packages. People feel relieved once they’re done and they can get on with enjoying their rest of their lives. In Japan’s tradition, the eldest son used to take over the family house and the family graves. But since more and more people moving to big cities and leaving their home towns behind, the elders don’t know whom to ask to plan their funerals and don’t have family grave sites. When Aeon started organizing shukatsu events five years ago, only few people came and once they looked at words like death and funeral, they ran away. But lately, people’s attitudes toward death are changing to a more positive way.
Coffin Free Trial
The world is truly changing. Do you wanna plan one?
“The course of life is unpredictable, no one can write his autobiography in advance – Abraham Joshua Heschel”
Adopted from: Bloomberg
