Alaska News

Japanese struggle over when to give up hope for the missing

MIYAKO, Japan — Shoichi Nakamura is having trouble sleeping and eating. Her brother, sister-in-law and their child have been missing for a week. She's been to three evacuation centers and pored over countless lists at disaster centers.

That has left her with a dilemma she shares with a growing number of Japanese in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami: When do you give up hope that your relatives are alive? And how do you mark the death in tradition-bound Japan without cremating the body?

"I think the tsunami took my brother," said Nakamura, 58, who works at a cleaning service, barely audible as she huddled on a blanket in the Yamaguchi Elementary School gym, her slippers neatly placed on the edge. "But another part of me doesn't want to give up searching. I'm sick wondering what to do."

The official toll of dead and missing exceeds 21,000, leaving flattened seaside communities struggling to ensure the dead are treated with dignity amid huge shortages of nearly everything needed to hold a funeral service. Gymnasiums, schools and even bowling alleys have become makeshift morgues for bodies that have been recovered.

Given the backlog, the Health Ministry said last week it would waive rules requiring relatives to obtain local permission before burials or cremations. But as time goes on, there will be more and more services without bodies.

Lacking a body makes it difficult to have a proper "oshoushiki," or funeral ceremony, Nakamura said. Instead of using the remains of her brother and his family, who disappeared from their seaside village, she may have to use another family's bone chips or ashes as a stand-in. The Buddhist priests have declared that an acceptable alternative, she said.

"I hear City Hall may give them out," she said.

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Other options include collective ceremonies, known as "godousou," or cremations of the clothes, photographs, or personal items of the deceased in lieu of a body. Even a pinch of dirt from the spot the dead were last seen may have to do in some cases.

"Many people will have to do this," said Souichiro Tachibana, 50 a teacher in an evacuation center in Miyako. "Even though it may not be your exact relation, what's important is to believe it is for peace of mind. This is the last choice, but what can you do?"

Japan did something similar during World War II when Japanese troops died overseas in huge numbers. The government would distribute sticks for grieving families claiming they were from the war zone, said Shinya Yamada, assistant professor at Tokyo's National Museum of Japanese History. "But who knows if it's true," he said.

Each family must decide when to give up hope. If the fishing industry is any judge, most people will decide within a week or two, said Takeshi Asada, 64, a boat-engine mechanic who was wandering amid Miyako's beached boats, tangled nets and fishing floats in search of a neighbor's missing husband.

"When bodies are taken by a tsunami or sea accident, they decompose and float onto the beach," he said. "If nothing shows up in a week or two, people accept the inevitable." Driven by limited space, the percentage of Japanese who are cremated has grown steadily — reaching 99 percent in 2009.

But cremation also is seen as an important purification rite before the next life. Some survivors interviewed over the past week by Japanese media said they faced a life of despair if they didn't find their relatives' bodies. Others fear their loved one's spirits will haunt them if they don't get a proper burial.

"Indeed, some people believe spirits of the dead killed violently and are not cared for can cause problems," said Ian Reader, professor of Japanese Studies at England's University of Manchester. "And places like Tohoku with an aged population and a more 'traditional' orientation than say Tokyo might hold to such views more strongly."

But cremation requires an estimated 40 to 50 liters of kerosene, which is in short supply, and some local governments have started burying the dead, a procedure sometimes considered unclean.

A further complication is that many of those grieving have no place store the urn. "We're trying to preserve their memories," said Wataru Takahashi,36, who is missing two cousins, a mother-in-law and a sister-in-law. "But we need a house first."

Defenders say kerosene should be used for the dead even if it leaves the living are cold and hungry.

"I'll do what it takes to get the fuel and I don't care if they say I'm a bad guy," said Bunkai Abe, chief priest of the Jouan Temple in Miyako, which was relocated in 1618 to a site up a steep road from the devastated port after being flatted by a tsunami.

At the Ruisen Temple in neighboring Yamada, a town that's recovered 379 bodies, Buddhist priest Keizan Ishigamori said some burial is probably inevitable. The community's crematorium can only handle nine bodies a day.

"Being buried or burned isn't about religion," said Ishigamori. "It's more about culture and ceremony. The soul starts its voyage either way."

Priests said troubled survivors have many questions. "They want to cry, they're angry," Ishigamori said. "But they're holding it inside. It's terrible. But it happened, and we must help each other to move on."

By MARK MAGNIER

Los Angeles Times

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