Farewell...
Originally uploaded by nofrills.
Kenji Nagai's funeral took place in Aoyama, Tokyo, on Monday 8 October 2007. Among the attended (500 or 1,000 in total) there were hundreds of Burmese people.
The picture is taken in the main hall, where his coffin is placed. Hundreds of white flowers (white chrysanthemums) beautifully surrounded his coffin and his portrait. I was led into the hall to offer incense (it's a Japanese Buddhist ritual for the dead) along with other mourners but the queue was tremendously long. There were so many people. A young mother next to me told her daughter (aged three or four) to say good-bye to "Ken-chan." They seemed to know the journalist. It bring me a smile that a fifty-year-old man was called "Ken-chan" by a three-year-old.
Nagai's parents along with Mr Yamaji and relatives stood just outside the hall to say thanks to the mourners - rather, they were silently thanked, by making bows.
The funeral ritual ends when all the mourners have offered incense. Then it's time to bid farewell to the dead. The coffin is, for the last time, opened and everybody place a flower around the dead.
I have done this many times - my grandfathers, my grandmother, uncle, aunt, father, friends, cousins - but this was the first time for me to lay a flower for somebody I have never spoken with. Nevertheless, I felt as if I knew him. All I could say was "thank you very much". I placed my flower somewhere very close to his right hand.
