[Post 1299] Why People Practise Dying: East Asia's Living Funerals & Coffin Therapy | Good Death Innovators

Summary

Faced with a rapidly ageing demographic and a surge in isolated deaths, East Asia is undergoing a radical shift in how it handles the end of life. This episode highlights the physical and social innovations helping the elderly strip away rigid, expensive ancestral traditions to reclaim their final moments. 

In Taiwan and South Korea, we step inside 'living funerals' where participants lie in mock coffins, using the shock of facing their own end to cure depression and find renewed purpose. In Japan, strangers are forming chosen families, purchasing shared cemetery plots to support each other and stave off the fear of dying alone. 

Meanwhile, innovators are bypassing the traditional headstone entirely. From GPS-tracked garden burials to custom-built drones scattering ashes into the open sky, this episode showcases how people are redesigning the funeral industry to ensure they leave on their own terms, with absolutely no regrets.