Japan's camera phone craze spreads to funerals
"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
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.
But others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.
"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.
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.
But others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.
"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.
