Japanese cremations

Cremating yet another friend in Tokyo

Before I start, let me say that none of the pictures here are mine. They are all from Google images.

On the morning of June 28th, 2022, just 4 days before my birthday and in the middle of one of the craziest (schedule wise) video edits I’ve ever done (NHK history documentary), I woke up to a missed call and a text message that no friend ever wants to see. This is now 3 of these messages relating to close Western friends living in Tokyo (we tend to stick together), all very early in the morning, that I’ve had. Two more close friends passed, one in Australia, one in the US, also passed and the average age of the awesome 5 combined would not have been over 40.

“He’s gone. I couldn’t save him, I’m sorry.”

And just like that, at 44 years young and the oldest of the 5 I knew, one of my closest friends in the world was gone. In his sleep, next to a loving woman, my friend departed this world. That’s not a bad way to go, even if it is far, far too early.

What happened next was a bit of a whirlwind.

I volunteer to help out at the police station with my friend’s wife, followed by waiting, and some more waiting until I could get the chance to say goodbye.

The cremation was yesterday at 10am sharp. There was no funeral, no ceremony, just immediate family of 4 Japanese and me.

I think that the Japanese confront death a lot better than we Westerners do. Nobody was crying, because we (I’ve just said “we” when referring to Japanese? It feels right to say that only as I write this) know that pain is suffered only by the ones remaining.

Don’t get me wrong, I shed a lot of tears leading up to this day, more than I ever thought I would for a friend, but there’s something about having to be strong in front of two young elementary school girls that have you put on the bravest of faces.

In a small room, we stood over the open coffin, his smiling, peaceful face a relief to see. Back in 2012 when this happened to my good friend Rocky, this was not the case. Poor Rocky looked in extreme pain whilst lying in the coffin but he (like all 5 of my friends who’ve passed) was a great, great guy and if there is such a place as heaven, pain on his face or not, Rocky will be there. In fact, all 5 will be drinking a beer 🍺 together.

Japanese cremations are, much like ALL of Japan, a clock work of events. You don’t miss a beat, as just like Japanese trains, everything happens on time to the letter.

I get one minute alone to say goodbye, and only because I requested it. I place my hand on his chest, and I talk. I tell him all the things I know he’d want to hear as well as what I need to say from the bottom of my heart. I wanted more time, one minute wasn’t enough.

During this one minute, I am half expecting my friend to open his eyes and say “bugger off with the sadness will you, let me sleep. I’m ok mate. You go live your life for me”.

Then, with his family, just the 5 of us, we close the lid of the coffin. We’ve been told it’s time to roast my mate. As we close the lid, I squat down, looking at his face and remembering my friend until the very last moment the lid closes shut.

Japanese cremations

Although Japanese cremations are the fusion of Buddhist and Shinto funeral practices, as far as my research can tell, cremation is a Buddhist practice. As Buddhism spread through eastern Asia during the first two millennia AD, so did the practice of cremation. Death created pollution, people apparently believed, and the ritual disposal of bodies was supposed to be a kind of cleansing. Until the last few years of the 19th century, cremation was controversial in Japan because a portion of the population—Confucians, specifically—believed the burning of corpses to be morally indefensible and more polluting than full-body burial.

Buddhism did not play a big part in funeral services until the Edo Period (1603-1867) when the Shogun (samurai government) forced all people to register as Buddhists as part of an effort to eliminate Christianity to counter an upsurge in religion’s popularity. Can you tell I am in the middle of a Japanese history documentary video edit?

In the late 1860s, Japanese government officials made several failed attempts to ban cremation but in 1873, despite public opposition, Japan implemented the ban. To justify it, government officials claimed that burning bodies was disrespectful to the dead and jeopardized public morality and that the resulting smoke was, Tokyo’s police claimed, a public health concern.

The ban lasted only two years. Scientific researchers in Europe touted the sanitary benefits of cremation, including its use in helping control the spread of disease. Rather than a spiritual practice, people came to view it as a sanitary one and Japan, after 260 years of isolation from the outside world and in the middle of a “everything Western is great” ideology, reversed the ban.

Two decades later, in 1897, the Japanese government ruled that anyone who died of a communicable disease had to be cremated. In an ironic twist, government officials began actively promoting the cleansing power of fire and its ability to destroy diseases.

Today, 99.97 percent of people in Japan are cremated, a figure from 2014 according to Wikipedia.

And so here we are, cremation in Japan in 2022. The third time I’ve done it in 10 years and by the far the loneliest of them all.

The traditional colour of sorrow in Buddhism is white, and my friend was draped in a lovely white silk cloth. In contrast, I was in a black suit and black tie. I had wanted to wear my Liverpool shirt, which is bright red, and my friend would have hated it and loved it at the same time, but I thought of the family and decided against it.

Japanese people wear black when attending the wake and sometimes carry a set of prayer beads called “juzu”, similar to the Rosary, which his wife did.

Closing the lid, and the chapter of life

The lid to my friend’s coffin is now shut. It’s time to cremate.

The coffin is placed on a tray in the crematorium. We follow the coffin as it is wheeled to the oven on a machine. Once at the oven, we watch the sliding of the body into the cremation chamber and I have no doubt that this will scar small children for life.

It’s like a fast food service. Precision, timing, in and out. The oven for my friend is in a row of 5 or 6 others, and there are other people doing the same thing at the same time for their deceased loved ones. You can see the same thing happening from the corner of your eye, without even having to look over.

In less than 30 seconds, the coffin is in and the door is shut. Then we go wait.

90 minutes later, staff come over and tell you it’s been done and you go back to the oven. The door is shut but as soon as you line up on little markers on the floor, out pops the tray. Before the tray emerges, you can already see what’s left, nothing except 90% bones and very little ash.

Japanese Bone Separation Ceremony - Kotsuage

One thing that separates the Japanese cremation ceremony from more tradition cremation ceremonies of the West, is the bone separation ceremony. The concept of kotsuage might sound both heartbreaking and morbid to us but to the Japanese it is part of everything. For me, it is by far the single most confronting part of accepting death as you pick up your dead friend’s bones with a pair of chopsticks. In Japan, people are very accepting and open about death as ancestors are seen as protectors of the family, and this is simply another ritual to bring families together after the loss of a loved one.

First though, staff wheel the very large tray of bones from the the oven into another room, and you stand on more markers on the floor. There is a large urn with long chopsticks in the them and you take a set each.

In the past, for Rocky (2012) and for Eric (2017), I refused to do kotsuage. There were so many people there for those two legends that it was ok for me to take a step back. On this occasion, with the children waiting in a different room, it was just me and his wife. I stepped up to the plate. Right you are. It had to be done.

The member of staff, who you must remember, is just a regular guy working a job, then explains what each bone is. You can see it all. The most sacred and significant bone is the hyoid bone (the horse shaped bone in your throat) and is pointed out as being special. Then the staff members shows you the skull bones, the jaw bone with still in tact teeth connected, radial bones, hop bones, and other bones of the lower body. Again, there is very little ash. When a body is cremated in the West, bone fragments are removed by the crematorium and only the ashes are returned to the family.

Together with his wife at the same time, we pick one bone out with chopsticks and transfer it to the urn. This is the only time in Japan when it is ok for two people to hold the same item at the same time with chopsticks. You can see the energy of the event come right through the chopsticks into your hand and arm. Little sounds suddenly become very big, like the sound made when the chopstick picks up the bone.

To ensure the eternal comfort of the deceased, the remainder of the bones are placed in the urn by staff, starting from feet first and the head last.

I still cannot accept the bones not being ground to powder like in the West. I want to think that my ashes will one day be scattered out to sea, returning me to wherever I came from before I was born. In this Japanese style, your bones are still in an urn. I don’t like it, but it’s a very surreal reminder that life is so very precious. Don’t bicker with people over stupid little things, don’t belittle those who are weaker than you, and do good deeds so that good deeds may come to you. That has always been my ethos in martial arts, to pay forward what I know to my kohai (juniors) on the tatami, as my senpai (senior) was someone who bothered to take the time to do that for me. In this day and age in Aikido, there are no juniors anywhere in the world who want to be part of this concept, but I still do my best. We are in the age of participation trophies. I have another blog post coming soon about the senpai/kohai (senior/junior - not only in martial arts, but in all parts of Japanese society) concept in Japan being totally dead. Now is not the time nor the place to write about it.

When it was all done and dusted, the urn was placed in a box and I carried my friend to his wife’s car. His two daughter’s sat in the back seat, so I placed the box in between them.

Be good people, love thy neighbour and may peace prevail on earth.

I love you my friend. Until we meet again. Thank you for the memories.

RIP.