Space Constraints in Urban Asia Prompt a Shift in Ritual and Memorialization

Lily Kong, a geographer at the National University of Singapore, describes how commemorative practices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China have changed in response to shrinking amounts of physical space for the dead. These shifts — from earthly graves to cremation, and now to scattered ashes and even online memorials — mark a graduation from "spatial competition to spatial compression and then to spatial transcendence," -The Challenges of Burying The Dead in Urban Asia, The Atlantic Cities, Eric Jaffe

What is evident from existing studies is that death practices and deathscapes have evolved over time in a number of Asian cities. ... As a consequence, sacred space and sacred time have been reconceptualised and rituals have been (re)invented to suit conditions of modernity while addressing abiding belief systems. -Urban Studies, Lily Kong

This change in rituals, moving  from the physical to the virtual through the use of memorial websites vividly demonstrates both the need for ritual and the ways that traditions adapt to new circumstances.  Visit Atlantic Cities for Mr. Jaffee's full piece, and if you have access to Sage Journals, please take a look at Ms. Kong's Article. 

Everything You Wanted to Know; More Reasons to Go

In a previous post I mentioned some of the exciting events on hand at Death: Southbank Centre's Festival for the Living   which runs from January 27th through the 29th at the Southbank Centre in London.  As the festival approaches, I've heard that some of the most important voices involved in the transformation of contemporary funerals will be sharing their thoughts and work at the festival as well.

Charles Cowling, author of The Good Funeral Guide and writer of the Good Funeral Guide Blog  offers regular commentary on funeral issues with wisdom, passion, and humor.  He will speak as part of a panel of funeral professionals on the occasion of the anniversary of the death of Joshua Edmonds.

Jane Harris (center left), mother of Joshua, and her son Joe (far right), will join Charles and show a trailer of Remembering Josh,  a very important film that deals with the loss of  her son, and the moving memorial service the family created mark his passing.  The film is also the subject of a recent Daily Undertaker interview.

This event, 'Everything you wanted to know about funerals (but were afraid to ask)' will be held from 3-4pm at the Front Room of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Centre in London on Saturday, January 28th,

Sorrow for the lost 'Poe Toaster': No cognac, roses left at grave

For the third year in a row, the “Poe Toaster” -- who regularly marked the birth of Edgar Allan Poe with a tribute of three roses and cognac -- failed to make the  nocturnal trip to the writer’s original grave in Baltimore, thus apparently ending a tradition that lasted more than half a century.

-from LATimes