Tag Archives: Cultural Perspectives

You Will Laugh, You Will Cry: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, reveals beauty through the death of a teen

It is not surprising that Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, an award winning coming-of-age film centered on a teen dying of terminal illness, got a standing ovation at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. The story follows awkward, insecure … Continue reading

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The Unique Funeral Customs of Various Filipino Ethnic Groups

An exploration into unique burial rites and customs practiced among different groups in the Philippines

When you hear the word “funeral,” your mind might drift to images of people gathering around the caskets or urns of lost loved ones, while delivering eulogies and culminating with either digging dirt for the grave or scattering the ashes … Continue reading

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Into the Woods

Natural German burials rooted in traditional places

Were you to walk into one of FriedWald’s EcoEternity forests in Germany, you may not necessarily know that you had entered a green burial site. No headstones to be seen, no large tombs proclaiming the importance of the interred. You … Continue reading

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Shraddha: A Hindu Ceremony To Help Souls Enter The Next World After Death

Today we explore the ideology behind the Hindu Ceremony of Shraddha

For Hindus, Shraddha is a ceremony that must happen in order to ensure that the souls of their loved ones who have died will enter the next world safely and soundly. Its name comes from the Sanskrit word that means … Continue reading

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Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

A young woman's funny, heartfelt memoir of working as a mortician and revolutionizing how we think of death

From her opening line “A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves,” I could tell this isn’t your run-of-the-mill memoir. Caitlin Doughty’s Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is at once laugh-out-loud funny and … Continue reading

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Japanese Funeral Superstitions Surrounding Death and the Number Four

Why this number sparks fear in Japan

Superstitions about numbers are nothing new. Look at Western culture’s obsession with the unlucky number thirteen to understand how pervasive number superstitions can be. Many people in Japan would think nothing of hopping into an elevator to get to the … Continue reading

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