Japan’s expensive funerals and declining birth rates are transforming ancestral traditions

Whenever I drive amid the mazelike bustle of Tokyo's Shuto Expressway, where approximately 1 million vehicles transit daily, I see billboard advertisements for all manner of businesses: dentists, hotels, car and tire companies, and affordable funerals. Lots and lots of funerals.

Many Japanese are rethinking whether to continue with costly burial traditions. Arrow/DigitalVision via Getty Image Whenever I drive amid the mazelike bustle of Tokyo’s Shuto Expressway, where approximately 1 million vehicles transit daily, I see billboard advertisements for all…