Valentine, Christine A

OPUS

        Citation for published version:Valentine, CA 2009, 'Japanese ambivalence about traditional mourning requirements', Pharos International: theOfficial Journal of the Cremation Society of Great Britain and the International Cremation Federation, vol. 2009,no. Autumn, pp. 42-43.Publication date:2009Link to publicationReproduced here by kind permission of Pharos International. Pharos International is the official journal of theCremation Society of Great Britain and also of the International Cremation Federation (ICF).University of BathGeneral rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Download date: 07. Dec. 201940 |  P H A R O S I N T E R N AT I O N A L | A U T U M N 2009Japanese Ambivalence aboutTraditional Mourning RequirementsDr Christine ValentineCentre for Death and Society, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of BathThis article is based on research carriedout in Japan last year to consider therole of the ancestral tradition in contemporaryresponses to death and loss. This long-standing system of collective and domesticrites is designed to reinforce and perpetuatefamily ties beyond the grave. It includes thefuneral and cremation ceremonies,memorial services, grave visits and home altarrituals through which the living encourageand support deceased loved ones in makinga smooth and peaceful passage to theafterlife and eventually ancestorhood (Smith1974). Such ideas persist in a post-industrialcontext of mixed and competing messagesabout how death should be handled. As inthe UK, dying and mourning have been placedin the hands of a variety of professionals withincreasing emphasis on consumer choice. In seeking to illuminate contemporaryresponses to traditional forms most researchhas focused on overt rituals. But what oftheir meanings for the bereaved individualswho engage with these? Did they findsupport for their grief or were they simplyconforming to the status quo? The interviewsI conducted with 17 bereaved Japanesepeople, 13 women and four men, aged 29to 63, painted an ambivalent picture. Someindividuals felt constrained by the dictates oftradition, whilst some found them beneficial.Others took an improvisory approach toredefine, adapt or even dispense withtradition and achieve a more personallysatisfying experience. Though the emphasisof different accounts could weigh positivelyor negatively, none were wholly consistent,but rather conveyed the double-edgednature of people’s experiences of theancestral tradition, its costs and benefits.CostsThe impact of a loved one’s death wasreported to set in motion a flurry of activitythat focused attention away from thebereaved person’s personal sense of lossand grief to engage with the more socialimplications of death. A change of gear andaccompanying sense of pressure wasdescribed in terms such as ‘suddenly allthese things took over’, and ‘all of a suddenit became very business-like’. Such pressurewas linked in part to the demands of whatwas often an individual’s first direct encounterwith ‘funeral Buddhism’, a negative expressionof Japanese Buddhism being limited to theperformance of funerals and memorialservices. These have been criticised forbeing overly formalised and emphasisingcommercial rather than spiritual matters(Tomatsu, 2001). Funeral companies havesimilarly been given a bad press for theirrole in creating more pressure for bereavedpeople through promoting lavish, ostentatioussend-offs (Suzuki, 2000). Misaki1, a woman inher 60s, reported that the funeral directorhad tried to encourage the family to buy themost expensive coffin for her husband. Herdaughter had silenced him by saying‘doesn’t it get burned along with the body?’Whilst Misaki’s experience indicates thatsuch pressure may be resisted, in a culturethat promotes social conformity, peopletend to take the line of least resistance. In contrast to the emphasis on personalautonomy in many Western societies, inJapan proper performance of one’s role inthe group and fostering harmoniousrelationships is valued over individual self-expression. This contrast is reflected in theprovision of mourning guidelines. In the UK,these are minimal, allowing scope forindividual self-expression, yet leaving peopleat a loss as to how to behave (Valentine,2008). In Japan there is no shortage ofcultural prescription, though this may allowlittle room for personal grief, as reported byRin, a woman in her 50s and Noriko, her 20s:‘I was suddenly thrown into all the thingsto be taken care of and there was no timeto be sad and no time for any last messageto give to my husband so all that emotionalstuff had to be put aside.‘So the first thing I thought was I bettertell everybody, I better tell his company andhis relatives. Then all of a sudden I was busywith so many things – funeral preparations. I was kind of sad in a way but I was so busywith all these things that I couldn’t reallyregister my sadness.’The resentment this could evoke wasconveyed by Nanami, a woman of 30, whosehusband died suddenly and unexpectedlyof an aneurysm:‘Then our mutual friends came to payrespects to him and burn incense and I hadto welcome them and deal with all that.Traditional Japanese Buddhist Funeral Setting (Tanaka Daisuke)A U T U M N 2009 |  P H A R O S I N T E R N AT I O N A L | 41Then I had to plan his funeral so I met thefuneral conductor there too. So I dealt withall that but I still couldn’t take it in. And Iwas very sad during the funeral and wakeand I wanted to scream and I wanted it tostop but I had to deal with people, speakwith people.’So too could the private, domesticobservances feel at odds with morepersonal inclinations. Noriko reportedhaving bought a domestic altar, or butsudanfor her husband, her mother having urgedher to do so. This was in spite of feeling thatit was an outdated tradition andinappropriate for a woman living on her own. ‘Well my mother said to me don’t youthink you should do something – get him abutsudan? And I said, well I think they’re abit sort of naff and for a woman living on myown do I want to have that sort of thing inmy room? It seems a bit kind of odd.’BenefitsYet meaning could be found in the statusquo, Izanagi, a man in his 40s, discoveringthat traditional forms could take on new lightin the face of losing a loved one. Thus heremembered the funeral ceremony for facinghim with the stark reality of his wife’s absence:‘As I said, I’m not religious… but to doall these ceremonial things rather than thebelief... that has been very helpful to me.I’ve been to many funerals before likefriends and people from the office – I’vealways felt a distance. But when it comes tomy wife and her photos on the stage andthe monks chanting. So the funeral was theplace that forced me to face the realityabout her leaving me and it’s very sad but itreally made me believe that she had reallydied – not like an image or a feeling butjust me going through the process forcedme to face the reality. So being forced toface and accept the reality I think is a veryimportant step to go through.’For Harui, a man in his 50s, the provisionof a series of rites allowed time to come toterms with his son’s death, as well as servedas a measure of his grief:‘The Buddhist death ritual has a series ofrituals, like the 7th day and the 49th dayand by going through these rituals I wentthrough different types of emotions and ittakes time – so I had to go through all thoserituals and sometimes I felt maybe my sonwas coming back and sometimes it felt like Iwas saying goodbye.’Rin found meaning in having restrained hergrief during the cremation ceremony so thather husband’s spirit could depart in peace:‘And then they put him in the oven andshut the iron door. But before that – there’sa gap in the coffin where you can see theface – I was able to see him and saygoodbye to him first. My last words to himwere – I thought I won’t cry and I won’t losemyself or he probably can’t leave thecurrent world – so just for him to be able toleave here I told him, “I’m ok”, so he couldleave this world in peace.’Traditional requirements could be adaptedto accommodate more personal needs,such as retaining a loved one’s ashes ratherthan burying them on the 49th day asrequired by tradition. Arisu, a woman in her30s, kept her mother’s ashes at home forthree years until, in Arisu’s words, ‘I no longerneeded them near me to experience herpresence’. Holding the funeral at homecould be a welcome release from thepressures associated with a more publicaffair. Akiko, a woman in her 40s, recollectedher father’s home funeral:‘It was a very warm family, homelyatmosphere kind of funeral – because mymum’s and dad’s relatives don’t get alonghe didn’t want to invite them. …So hewanted to invite his tax lawyer and lawyerand banker and sushi chef - and we playedhis favourite singer’s song throughout theceremony and we were able to see him offin a very relaxed atmosphere... That was akind of pleasant discovery for me that youcan have a very private, small funeral...’For Rin, the funeral itself was consideredunnecessary, visits made by friends to thehouse to pay respects and take their leaveserving the same purpose. She furtherdeparted from convention by keeping herhusband’s body in a futon during that time:‘So for those three days all his friendscame to say goodbye to him so I took that asthe funeral rather than having a conventionalceremony. Normally Japanese tradition is toput the body in a wooden coffin but I choseto put him in a futon for those three days.’For Tomoko, a woman in her 20s, whosuffered a miscarriage, the absence of anyformal ceremony for such a loss called forimprovisation. Thus she approached herfather, a Buddhist priest, to perform aninformal ceremony in her parents’ home. Asa result she was able to find support for hergrief as well as ensure the well-being of herunborn child: ‘After the miscarriage I asked my dad tohave a ceremony for my child. So me andmy husband went to my parents’ house,which is a Buddhist temple. And I didn’tknow, but my mother had invited my brothersand sisters, so they were there and my dadsaid a sutra and so did my brother – he’s apriest too. And I was crying so hard and myolder sister was crying for me too and I thinkthat helped me a lot because I thought mypain and suffering was understood bysomeone else. But I sort of felt relief thatthe baby went back wherever she or he wascoming from.’ConclusionThus, participants conveyed the costs andbenefits of traditional ancestral rites. Thecosts reflected the demands of overlyformalised and commercialised funerals andemphasis on social conformity that couldimpose restraints on or feel at odds withpersonal grief. The benefits were linked tothe provision of rituals and a period of timefor registering the fact of death, andassisting a loved one’s peaceful departurethat made sense of emotional self-restraint.Compromises could be achieved throughtreating tradition as negotiable, evenoptional, in the light of more personalneeds. For example, the ashes could beretained, the funeral held at home ordispensed with altogether, and a specialceremony could be devised where nonehad existed. In recounting their experiences,participants sought to reconcile the socialobligations of mourning with their need tofind personal meaning in their loss.             ■1 Pseudonyms have been used to protect confidentiality.References1. Suzuki, Hikaru. 2000. The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan.Chicago: Stanford University Press.2. Tomatsu, Yoshiharu. 2001. Transforming Ritual, Transforming Japanese Buddhism. Jodu Shu Research Institute Paper for international conference ‘Gateways of Power: 21st Century Religion and Ritual in China, Tibet and Japan’, March 2nd 2001, University of San Francisco, USA.3. Tsuji, Yohko. 2005. Mortuary Rituals in Japan: The Hegemony of Tradition and theMotivation of Individuals. Ethos, 34 (3):391-431.4. Valentine, C (2008) Bereavement Narratives: continuing bonds in the 21st century.London and New York: Routledge.

Japanese ambivalence about traditional mourning requirements

        Citation for published version:Valentine, CA 2009, 'Japanese ambivalence about traditional mourning requirements', Pharos International: theOfficial Journal of the Cremation Society of Great Britain and the International Cremation Federation, vol. 2009,no. Autumn, pp. 42-43.Publication date:2009Link to publicationReproduced here by kind permission of Pharos International. Pharos International is the official journal of theCremation Society of Great Britain and also of the International Cremation Federation (ICF).University of BathGeneral rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright ownersand it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Download date: 12. May. 201940 |  P H A R O S I N T E R N AT I O N A L | A U T U M N 2009Japanese Ambivalence aboutTraditional Mourning RequirementsDr Christine ValentineCentre for Death and Society, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of BathThis article is based on research carriedout in Japan last year to consider therole of the ancestral tradition in contemporaryresponses to death and loss. This long-standing system of collective and domesticrites is designed to reinforce and perpetuatefamily ties beyond the grave. It includes thefuneral and cremation ceremonies,memorial services, grave visits and home altarrituals through which the living encourageand support deceased loved ones in makinga smooth and peaceful passage to theafterlife and eventually ancestorhood (Smith1974). Such ideas persist in a post-industrialcontext of mixed and competing messagesabout how death should be handled. As inthe UK, dying and mourning have been placedin the hands of a variety of professionals withincreasing emphasis on consumer choice. In seeking to illuminate contemporaryresponses to traditional forms most researchhas focused on overt rituals. But what oftheir meanings for the bereaved individualswho engage with these? Did they findsupport for their grief or were they simplyconforming to the status quo? The interviewsI conducted with 17 bereaved Japanesepeople, 13 women and four men, aged 29to 63, painted an ambivalent picture. Someindividuals felt constrained by the dictates oftradition, whilst some found them beneficial.Others took an improvisory approach toredefine, adapt or even dispense withtradition and achieve a more personallysatisfying experience. Though the emphasisof different accounts could weigh positivelyor negatively, none were wholly consistent,but rather conveyed the double-edgednature of people’s experiences of theancestral tradition, its costs and benefits.CostsThe impact of a loved one’s death wasreported to set in motion a flurry of activitythat focused attention away from thebereaved person’s personal sense of lossand grief to engage with the more socialimplications of death. A change of gear andaccompanying sense of pressure wasdescribed in terms such as ‘suddenly allthese things took over’, and ‘all of a suddenit became very business-like’. Such pressurewas linked in part to the demands of whatwas often an individual’s first direct encounterwith ‘funeral Buddhism’, a negative expressionof Japanese Buddhism being limited to theperformance of funerals and memorialservices. These have been criticised forbeing overly formalised and emphasisingcommercial rather than spiritual matters(Tomatsu, 2001). Funeral companies havesimilarly been given a bad press for theirrole in creating more pressure for bereavedpeople through promoting lavish, ostentatioussend-offs (Suzuki, 2000). Misaki1, a woman inher 60s, reported that the funeral directorhad tried to encourage the family to buy themost expensive coffin for her husband. Herdaughter had silenced him by saying‘doesn’t it get burned along with the body?’Whilst Misaki’s experience indicates thatsuch pressure may be resisted, in a culturethat promotes social conformity, peopletend to take the line of least resistance. In contrast to the emphasis on personalautonomy in many Western societies, inJapan proper performance of one’s role inthe group and fostering harmoniousrelationships is valued over individual self-expression. This contrast is reflected in theprovision of mourning guidelines. In the UK,these are minimal, allowing scope forindividual self-expression, yet leaving peopleat a loss as to how to behave (Valentine,2008). In Japan there is no shortage ofcultural prescription, though this may allowlittle room for personal grief, as reported byRin, a woman in her 50s and Noriko, her 20s:‘I was suddenly thrown into all the thingsto be taken care of and there was no timeto be sad and no time for any last messageto give to my husband so all that emotionalstuff had to be put aside.‘So the first thing I thought was I bettertell everybody, I better tell his company andhis relatives. Then all of a sudden I was busywith so many things – funeral preparations. I was kind of sad in a way but I was so busywith all these things that I couldn’t reallyregister my sadness.’The resentment this could evoke wasconveyed by Nanami, a woman of 30, whosehusband died suddenly and unexpectedlyof an aneurysm:‘Then our mutual friends came to payrespects to him and burn incense and I hadto welcome them and deal with all that.Traditional Japanese Buddhist Funeral Setting (Tanaka Daisuke)A U T U M N 2009 |  P H A R O S I N T E R N AT I O N A L | 41Then I had to plan his funeral so I met thefuneral conductor there too. So I dealt withall that but I still couldn’t take it in. And Iwas very sad during the funeral and wakeand I wanted to scream and I wanted it tostop but I had to deal with people, speakwith people.’So too could the private, domesticobservances feel at odds with morepersonal inclinations. Noriko reportedhaving bought a domestic altar, or butsudanfor her husband, her mother having urgedher to do so. This was in spite of feeling thatit was an outdated tradition andinappropriate for a woman living on her own. ‘Well my mother said to me don’t youthink you should do something – get him abutsudan? And I said, well I think they’re abit sort of naff and for a woman living on myown do I want to have that sort of thing inmy room? It seems a bit kind of odd.’BenefitsYet meaning could be found in the statusquo, Izanagi, a man in his 40s, discoveringthat traditional forms could take on new lightin the face of losing a loved one. Thus heremembered the funeral ceremony for facinghim with the stark reality of his wife’s absence:‘As I said, I’m not religious… but to doall these ceremonial things rather than thebelief... that has been very helpful to me.I’ve been to many funerals before likefriends and people from the office – I’vealways felt a distance. But when it comes tomy wife and her photos on the stage andthe monks chanting. So the funeral was theplace that forced me to face the realityabout her leaving me and it’s very sad but itreally made me believe that she had reallydied – not like an image or a feeling butjust me going through the process forcedme to face the reality. So being forced toface and accept the reality I think is a veryimportant step to go through.’For Harui, a man in his 50s, the provisionof a series of rites allowed time to come toterms with his son’s death, as well as servedas a measure of his grief:‘The Buddhist death ritual has a series ofrituals, like the 7th day and the 49th dayand by going through these rituals I wentthrough different types of emotions and ittakes time – so I had to go through all thoserituals and sometimes I felt maybe my sonwas coming back and sometimes it felt like Iwas saying goodbye.’Rin found meaning in having restrained hergrief during the cremation ceremony so thather husband’s spirit could depart in peace:‘And then they put him in the oven andshut the iron door. But before that – there’sa gap in the coffin where you can see theface – I was able to see him and saygoodbye to him first. My last words to himwere – I thought I won’t cry and I won’t losemyself or he probably can’t leave thecurrent world – so just for him to be able toleave here I told him, “I’m ok”, so he couldleave this world in peace.’Traditional requirements could be adaptedto accommodate more personal needs,such as retaining a loved one’s ashes ratherthan burying them on the 49th day asrequired by tradition. Arisu, a woman in her30s, kept her mother’s ashes at home forthree years until, in Arisu’s words, ‘I no longerneeded them near me to experience herpresence’. Holding the funeral at homecould be a welcome release from thepressures associated with a more publicaffair. Akiko, a woman in her 40s, recollectedher father’s home funeral:‘It was a very warm family, homelyatmosphere kind of funeral – because mymum’s and dad’s relatives don’t get alonghe didn’t want to invite them. …So hewanted to invite his tax lawyer and lawyerand banker and sushi chef - and we playedhis favourite singer’s song throughout theceremony and we were able to see him offin a very relaxed atmosphere... That was akind of pleasant discovery for me that youcan have a very private, small funeral...’For Rin, the funeral itself was consideredunnecessary, visits made by friends to thehouse to pay respects and take their leaveserving the same purpose. She furtherdeparted from convention by keeping herhusband’s body in a futon during that time:‘So for those three days all his friendscame to say goodbye to him so I took that asthe funeral rather than having a conventionalceremony. Normally Japanese tradition is toput the body in a wooden coffin but I choseto put him in a futon for those three days.’For Tomoko, a woman in her 20s, whosuffered a miscarriage, the absence of anyformal ceremony for such a loss called forimprovisation. Thus she approached herfather, a Buddhist priest, to perform aninformal ceremony in her parents’ home. Asa result she was able to find support for hergrief as well as ensure the well-being of herunborn child: ‘After the miscarriage I asked my dad tohave a ceremony for my child. So me andmy husband went to my parents’ house,which is a Buddhist temple. And I didn’tknow, but my mother had invited my brothersand sisters, so they were there and my dadsaid a sutra and so did my brother – he’s apriest too. And I was crying so hard and myolder sister was crying for me too and I thinkthat helped me a lot because I thought mypain and suffering was understood bysomeone else. But I sort of felt relief thatthe baby went back wherever she or he wascoming from.’ConclusionThus, participants conveyed the costs andbenefits of traditional ancestral rites. Thecosts reflected the demands of overlyformalised and commercialised funerals andemphasis on social conformity that couldimpose restraints on or feel at odds withpersonal grief. The benefits were linked tothe provision of rituals and a period of timefor registering the fact of death, andassisting a loved one’s peaceful departurethat made sense of emotional self-restraint.Compromises could be achieved throughtreating tradition as negotiable, evenoptional, in the light of more personalneeds. For example, the ashes could beretained, the funeral held at home ordispensed with altogether, and a specialceremony could be devised where nonehad existed. In recounting their experiences,participants sought to reconcile the socialobligations of mourning with their need tofind personal meaning in their loss.             ■1 Pseudonyms have been used to protect confidentiality.References1. Suzuki, Hikaru. 2000. The Price of Death: The Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan.Chicago: Stanford University Press.2. Tomatsu, Yoshiharu. 2001. Transforming Ritual, Transforming Japanese Buddhism. Jodu Shu Research Institute Paper for international conference ‘Gateways of Power: 21st Century Religion and Ritual in China, Tibet and Japan’, March 2nd 2001, University of San Francisco, USA.3. Tsuji, Yohko. 2005. Mortuary Rituals in Japan: The Hegemony of Tradition and theMotivation of Individuals. Ethos, 34 (3):391-431.4. Valentine, C (2008) Bereavement Narratives: continuing bonds in the 21st century.London and New York: Routledge.

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Japanese ambivalence about traditional mourning requirements

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