I was walking home from the English school a few nights ago, at about 9 PM, going through Tenmonkan, when I got down to about the neighborhood of the Wicky's House bar and stage. Across the walkway from the bar was a modified unmarked black van designed kind of like a hearse. Three men in black suits and ties were coming out of one of the doorways of a nearby building, pulling a gurney with a human-shaped form on it, wrapped in a white sheet. I assume it was a body, maybe of a man in his 80's or 90's. But, what I'm having trouble with is that there's no mortuary in that building - just bars, restaurants and maybe some small apartments - and Japan doesn't have a practice of holding the body in private residences for live viewings. I'd thought that when someone passes away at home, they were taken away by ambulance at least for a doctor's death certificate, and then generally cremated. I'm told that if someone is found dead in their apartment from old age, they may be treated there and taken straight to a mortuary, but there was nothing on the van indicating that it belonged to a mortuary or funeral home.
Just one more thing I don't understand about this place.
2 comments:
(1)
if those men were already in black ties and suits, its either yakuza, or gang related people, or rich people.
(2)
if that person had a primary care doctor, then that person will give you the death certificate. If no primary, then call the police, then they will give you the death certificate after they check it wasn't homicide.
link: https://www.osohshiki.jp/column/article/330/
My wife (Japanese) disagrees with the Yakuza connection, and the building the guy was carried out from was cheap apartments above a collection of bars and night clubs. He could have been rich and slumming it, I guess, but there wouldn't have been much room for a family to be living with him...
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