No time for the dead: Japan embraces modern cemeteries with QR codes and cranes

More and more people in Japan are breaking with traditions on burial and mourning, swapping hometown graveyards for modern takes on cemeteries.
 

Tomohiro Hirose, resident monk at the temple that supervises the Kuramae-ryoen facility, has a traditional cemetery with some 300 graves.

"But about half of the graves no longer have anyone in the family to look after them," he told AFP.

To address the problem, a crop of modern, indoor cemetery facilities have emerged, offering to store remains for a set period, often up to three decades.

The ashes are eventually transferred to collective memorials, but individual names or QR codes are engraved on plaques to provide some personalisation, and monks pledge to continue offering prayers for the souls of the departed..
 

Hirose decided to build the site after the temple's old building was badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake. 

The cemetery uses machinery developed by Daifuku, a firm that produces storage, transport and collection systems for factories and warehouses.

The first order came in the 1990s, and more recently there has been interest from other Asian markets too, he said.
 

Modern cemetery sites are not only often more convenient, but cheaper.

An average spot costs around $7,100, roughly half a traditional gravesite, according to Kamakura Shinsho, a company that helps connect customers with cemeteries.

Other modern cemeteries are not big enough to need machinery, but incorporate other novel features.
 

Kokokuji temple, founded in Tokyo in 1630, has created a unique octagon-shaped space with walls of floor-to-ceiling displays of individual glass Buddha statuettes.

Each of the statues -- over 2,000 in all -- symbolises an individual whose ashes are stored there. When visitors scan an ID or enter a family name, the

Buddha assigned to their loved one is illuminated.