Thursday, February 16, 2006

Photo finish

Hey, guess where something creepy is going on?
Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
A disturbing trend? In Japan, you say? Get out of here!

The article says that some people look at it as a "memento" of the deceased. That's kind of nice, but I think I'd really prefer a photo of my friend or loved one from when they were still alive and kicking. It's just this thing I have--call it a hang-up, if you must--about not really wanting to look at pictures of the corpses of people I know.
At one ceremony, several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

"I'm sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed," she said.
Well then, I guess they ought to have closed-casket funerals, shouldn't they?

1 comment:

maggie katzen said...

this topic has come up ever so often in ann landers and dear abby columns. i mean, even before cell phones. for whatever reason some people want pictures of their deceased loved ones. or, um, not.