Chronicles of a Japanese funeral

Sushi Suzuki says: "I recently came back from the US to attend my grandfather's funeral in Japan and found some of the Japanese customs very interesting. I'm Japanese but spent more than half my life in the US so my senses may be more Western. Anyways, after the funeral, I decided to chronicle the entire event on my blog to share a first hand perspective of a Japanese funeral. Many of my friends found it interesting, I hope you guys do too. One particularily interesting custom:

When we entered the private room, a large tray was waiting for us in the middle of the room holding the ashes of the body. While all the flesh, the entire casket, flowers, and most other contents had burned down to fine ash, the skeletal structure of the body was still intact and warm (you could feel the heat radiating from the tray). Looking carefully in the ashes, one could identify small nails from the casket or pieces of the watch that was burned with the body… The representative then handed out several pairs of mismatched chopsticks (one wood, one bamboo) for us to pick the bones to place inside the urn. If you ever wondered why it's taboo to eat with mismatched chopsticks, this is why. He instructed us to pick from the feet first so that the body will be upright in the urn. We each picked a bone, placed it in the urn, and then passed off the chopsticks to the next person.

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