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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017.Drop-dead beautiful: Undertakers tested on how to dress a corpse
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Cricky
Had to deal with 3 family losses in the last 18 months all due to age thank god. The vultures circled each time. I just said No. We are not paying for that. Being a foreigner I get some leeway so I use it, my family and extended family thanked me as the pressure was off them and none of us want or can hand over so much cash on the corpse of a loved one. People have to say NO and celebrate the deceased in a personal way and not conform to a ritual that causes financial stress.
Bintaro
That will make for a killer résumé !
towingtheline
and while you're a very distressed and emotional state, they hand you an 'eye popping' invoice, bow and calmly, but quickly make their retreat.
It's all a con, Dying in Japan is a scam and they rip people off by manipulating the experience and their emotions. They 'invent' conditions that require so called 'special' rituals and a 'new name'. All excuses to prey on the vulnerable like vultures so they can charge an extortionate amount of money.. I have found the whole experience to be sleazy and disturbing. Amazing no one ever complains though, they just pay it and live with the burden.
FizzBit
@Cricky
Sorry to hear about your tuff times. But I'd like to ask if you wouldn't mind mentioning some of the services offered that you said no to.
commanteer
Welcome to the funeral business. There really is little room to complain. You are grieving, and funeral decisions have to be made on the spot - there's no time or desire to comparison shop or haggle. And you have a million and one other things to deal with after the death of a loved one. The funeral is at least out of the way quickly.
Even if the deceased specifically asks for a cheapo funeral, it will be difficult. Other relatives and friends will only see that you went the cheap route on the funeral. It will reflect badly on you, especially if they think you inherited any money from the deceased.
The only way around it is for people to make their own funeral arrangements well before they actually die. Not too many people do that though.
Cricky
And as all 3 times we were called after 12 at night to a corps I found it disturbing to see my wife being hard sold these services complete with menus. Sometimes you have to say NO. And not let the moment overwhelm you. Took our grandson overseas on half what we saved in 18 months. Now that's a memory.
Brian Wheway
@ cricky I think that we can all find funerals an emotional time, and an expensive one too, when my wife died a few years ago, I was presented with a huge bill from the undertaker, one part was a charge to collect her from the hospital and drive her back to the undertakers, which is about 14 miles, the bill was around £400 (56000 yen) I phoned him up and asked him if this was a mistake? no, that was correct he replied, at this point I told him that he was taking the **** and it did not cost that much! then he tried to justify this cost which I tore it to shreds giving other price comparisons, The whole point of my comment is, it is an emotional time for us and people do intend to let there guard down and I feel that we get preyed on, can you imagine a taxi driver charging £28 a mile rather than about £1 a mile. as I explained I could get a taxi from my house drive to a airport 140 miles away and come and collect me on my return and still have cash in my pocket, !!
papigiulio
Okuribito, wonderful movie if you haven't seen it yet.
Toasted Heretic
Sounds like most death based rituals, to me.
http://business.time.com/2013/07/26/your-funeral-home-may-be-scamming-you/
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/03/10/funeral-home-sales-practices-place-high-cost-on-grieving-families.html
Civitas Sine Suffragio
The death business is a rip-off in most countries because it provides the perfect conditions for a rip-off: emotionally distraught customers (marks) who cannot think straight or haggle because a loved one has died, who are under immense time pressure to make a decision and are expected by wider society to "do the right thing". Kerrrching!
Cricky
FizzBit
prayers, foods for the dead, yearly rental of a plot, a death name? Yearly commemoration Ceremony. A banquet for friends relatives. This distressing dressing ceremony.
Maria
On the other end of the scale, there does not need to be a funeral at all, and people do not need to be invited to anything. You can just have a cremation, with just one erson, or nobody, present.
You can reject the body, ie once they have died, the body is the responsibility of the hospital they are at. This wont work if they die at home, in which case see paragraph 1.
I, too, have been witness to the massive scam that is the funeral business, and was furious at their behaviour, taking emotional/financial advantage of grieving family, yet when a young daughter made a personal request concerning her mothers remains,, they refused her. Nothing I could do. Utter con artists.
Toasted Heretic
AKA, "Departures"? Very moving, indeed.
Civitas Sine Suffragio
Cricky: you were the "gaiatsu" conduit that since the days of Xavier some Japanese have used to say things to other Japanese that they could not say themselves. We have our uses...
Nippori Nick
In the west you can prepay your funerals? Is that not a done thing in Japan?
stormcrow
When it's my time, I've already told my family to do it as cheaply as possible. Once you're dead and gone, you're dead and gone and it doesn't matter anymore.
Simple is best where death is concerned.
FizzBit
Thanks Cricky. I'm copying and saving this for future advice.
What, no "set" choices?
sarc off
sakanafish
A little too morbid for me.....
Chop Chop
I have watched Departure (おくりびと) a few years ago. The film makes me change the view of the undertaker professional in Japan.