Attend the Asian Funeral Expo and Get a Free Coffin Portrait!
Designer Paper Effigies: Chinese paper offerings are burned as a gift to the dead. Now these paper offerings could be an elaborately crafted paper model of a house, a gym and spa, or even a nightclub.
Freeze Drying Your Body: A South Korean company presented Swedish Technology that consists of a container that will hold and literally shake a dead body while it freeze-dries and disintegrates. Although the technology is touted as saving the planet from the three to four hours of heat produced during cremation, the freeze-drying process takes several years and thus may require more energy in the long run.
Memorial Diamonds: A swiss company offers to chemically alter cremains and turn them into gemstones that can then be used for making jewelry.
Morbid Freebies: “Freebies” at the Asian Funeral Expo included coffin portraits and an Alzheimer’s test.
See Tiffany Lam, Asia Funeral Expo: Weird and wonderful things that people do to their dead, CNNGo, May 13, 2010.
Special thanks to Ann Murphy (associate professor of law, Gonzaga University) for bringing this article to my attention.