当我们在谈论葬礼的时候我们在谈论什么 译者：刘 璠 校对：张力文 策划：刘 璠  本文选自 The Economist | 取经号原创翻译 关注 取经号，回复关键词“外刊” 获取《经济学人》等原版外刊获得方法 Why undertakers are worried 颤抖吧，传统葬礼服务者 The bereaved, better-informed, no longer always do what they are told or pay whatever they are asked 信息时代，人们不再按部就班地举行葬礼 EVERY minute more than 100 people die. Most of these deaths bring not just grief to some, but also profit to others. America’s 2.7m-odd deaths a year underpin an industry worth $16bn in 2017, encompassing over 19,000 funeral homes and over 120,000 employees. In France the sector is worth an estimated €2.5bn ($3.1bn). The German market was worth €1.5bn in 2014 and employed nearly 27,000 people, a sixth of them undertakers. In Britain the industry, estimated to be worth around £2bn ($2.8bn), employs over 20,000 people, a fifth of them undertakers. 每分钟，有超过一百人死去。大多数时候，死亡不仅给一部分人带去悲伤，同时也给另一部分人带来利益。2017年，美国殡葬行业市值160亿美元，涉及逾1.9万个殡仪馆和超过12万的从业人员。这些数字的背后，是每年有超过270万个人死去。法国殡葬行业的市值约在25亿欧元（31亿美元）。2014年德国殡葬行业市值15亿欧元，从业人员近2.7万人，其中1/6是殡葬服务人员。英国的殡葬行业市值约在20亿英镑（28亿美元），从业人员超2万人，其中1/5是殡葬服务人员。 In the coming decades, as baby-boomers hit old age, the annual death rate will climb from 8.3 per 1,000 people today to 10.2 by 2050 in America, from 10.6 to 13.7 in Italy and from 9.1 to 12.8 in Spain. Spotting the steady rise in clientele, money managers—from risk-seeking venture capitalists to boring old pension funds—have been getting into the death business. Last year the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund bought one of Spain’s largest funeral businesses from 3i Group, a British private-equity firm, for £117m, and increased its stake in a French equivalent. The dead-body business is seen as highly predictable, uncorrelated with other industries, inflation-linked, low-risk and high-margin. 未来几十年，婴儿潮时期出生的人会逐渐老去。从现在起到2050年，美国的年死亡率将从8.3‰上升到10.2‰，意大利的年死亡率将从10.6‰上升到13.7‰，西班牙的年死亡率将从9.1‰上升到12.8‰。察觉到客户群的稳步上升，无论是偏爱冒险的风险投资，还是稳健无奇的养老基金，都将他们的目光投向了与死亡相关的这个行业。去年，安大略省教师退休基金会斥资1170亿英镑收购了一家西班牙殡葬行业的龙头公司，这家公司原本是英国私募投资公司3i集团的子公司。同年，该基金会还增加了其在一个法国殡葬公司的的持股量。在人们看来，殡葬业发展稳定，与其他行业的相关性不大，与通货膨胀互联，风险低，回报率高。 But in some of the world a profound shift is under way in what people want from funerals. As Thomas Lynch wrote in “The Undertaking” (1997), a wise book on practising his “dismal trade” in a small American town: “Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople. Another two or three dozen I take to the crematory to be burned. I sell caskets, burial vaults and urns for the ashes. I have a sideline in headstones and monuments. I do flowers on commission.” Social, religious and technological change threaten to turn that model on its head. 但在一些地方，人们对于葬礼的观念正在发生巨大变化。1997年，Thomas Lynch出版了《殡葬业》一书。这本指导类书籍讲述了作者是怎样在美国的一个小镇上开展他那“阴郁的生意”的。书中写道：“每年我都会为几百个我的同乡举行土葬。另外有20到30人会进行火化。我销售棺材、墓穴和骨灰盒。我有时也卖些墓碑和纪念碑。同时，我还有鲜花的提成。”然而，社会、宗教和科技方面的变化正在迫使这种模式发生天翻地覆的转变。
Stiff competition 激烈的竞争 “It’s happening in restaurants, nightclubs, wedding venues, country clubs and it’s very dangerous,” Bill McReavy, an undertaker from Minneapolis, told his vigorously nodding peers at the annual gathering of the American National Funeral Director Association (NFDA) in Boston last autumn. The NFDA expects the industry’s revenue to stagnate between 2016 and 2021. 去年秋天，在美国国家殡葬指导师协会的年会上，来自明尼阿波利斯的殡葬从业人员Bill McReavy说：“葬礼的地点可以选在饭店、夜店、婚礼场所和乡村俱乐部。这个趋势对于我们这个行业来说是非常具有威胁性的。”一旁的同行们则不住地点头附和。美国国家殡葬指导师协会预计，行业收入将在2016到2021年之间停滞不前。 One reason for this is a long-term trend towards cremation—both cheaper than burial, and open to a wider range of rituals. “You need two cremations to make the same as one burial,” says David Nixon, a funeral consultant in Illinois. As families move farther apart, relatives are less likely to tend to a grave in their hometown. As people increasingly identify with more than one locality, so they begin to hanker after more than one resting place. 造成这种状况的原因之一是火葬将在较长时间里占据主流地位。火葬不仅比土葬便宜，也方便举行更多的仪式。伊利诺斯州的葬礼咨询师David Nixon说：“一个土葬的费用等于两个火葬。” 由于如今家族成员并不是像以前那样居住在一起，故乡的墓碑不太会有亲戚们帮忙照料。如今有些人拥有不止一个居住地，也因此他们会寻找多个安息地。而这一人群的数量正在不断增长。 Cremation can get cheaper still. In an industrial park just west of Amsterdam, a low-rise building houses the headquarters of several budget funeral websites, all of them routes into the same company, Uitvaart24 (Funeral24), and offering direct cremation: a simple coffin, transport, cooling and burning without relatives present, at a price of around €1,250. “Our customers either don’t have the money or are sensible enough not to want to spend it,” says Jan-Jaap Palma, one of the owners. The business only started three years ago and now handles over 2,600 funerals a year. Mr Palma aspires to become the Netherlands’ largest funeral-provider. 火葬还可以更便宜。在阿姆斯特丹西部的一个工业园区内，几个平价葬礼网站的总部坐落在一幢不太高的大楼里。他们的母公司都是Uitvaart24 (Funeral24)。这些公司提供直接火葬的服务：简单的棺木、运输、冷却处理以及火化，这一系列服务均不需亲人在场，总价在1,250欧左右。公司的老板之一Jan-Jaap Palma说：“我们的客户要么没钱，要么足够理性，不愿意在这上面花钱。”这家公司才成立了三年，但现在每年能举行2600多场葬礼。Palma立志成为荷兰最大的葬礼服务提供者。 An increasing number, of whom David Bowie, who died in 2016, was probably the best-known, are taking this direct-cremation route. In America a third of cremations are now direct. Dignity, Britain’s only publicly listed funeral provider, started offering “Simplicity Cremations” last year. Simon Cox, a spokesman, expects 10% of British cremations to be direct by 2030. This is not driven just by cost. Many mourners still commemorate their loved ones. They simply separate this from body disposal and may not see any reason to include an undertaker. With no body to worry about, they can arrange an event of their own at a local hotel at a time of their choosing. “The sombre Victorian funeral is slowly being replaced by more upbeat personal celebrations,” says Mr Cox. 越来越多的人选择直接火化。其中最有名的可能就是2016年去世的著名歌手David Bowie。在美国，三分之一的火化是直接举行的。英国殡葬业唯一的上市公司Dignity去年开始提供“简约火化”服务。发言人Simon Cox预计，到2030年，将有10%的英国人选择直接火化。这并不仅仅是因为成本的原因。人们还是会追悼他们的亲人，只是将追悼会和遗体处理分离开了。这样在举行纪念活动的时候也不再需要一个殡葬服务者在场。不用考虑逝者的遗体，人们可以选择一个合适的时间在当地的宾馆里按自己的方式举行纪念活动。Cox说：“阴郁的维多利亚式葬礼正在逐渐被快乐的私人聚会所替代。” The Green Reaper 绿色收割机 Cremation, direct or otherwise, is not the only rival to old-fashioned burial. A study in 2015 found that over 60% of Americans in their 40s and older would consider a “green” burial, with no embalming and a biodegradable casket, if any. Five years before the proportion was just over 40%. Jimmy Olson, an undertaker in Wisconsin specialising in green funerals, says it is inconsistent “for someone who’s recycled all their life and drives a Prius to then be put under the ground in a concrete vault, plastic-sealed casket and with their body pumped full of chemicals.” 火葬并非是取代传统土葬的唯一方式。2015年的一项研究发现，在40岁以上的美国人中，有超过60%的人会考虑选择绿色安葬方式——尽量摒弃防腐处理，使用可生物降解的棺木。五年前，这个比例只有40%多一点。威斯康星的绿色葬礼专家Jimmy Olson说，“有些人终身过着环保的生活，开着节能汽车。但死后，身体却需要经过化学处理后，被装载在塑封棺木里，安放在由混凝土建造的墓穴中”，这和他们的环保生活是相违背的。 Britain now has over 270 green cemeteries, and 9% of funerals are now green, according to SunLife, an insurer. The appeal is more than just the lack of waste. Gordon Tulley and his wife run two green burial parks, one in a meadow in Lincolnshire, one in woodland in Yorkshire. Unembalmed bodies in a simple shroud or willow casket are buried in shallow graves under trees. “Six feet under [the standard elsewhere] is too deep for bacteria to break down the body,” explains Mr Tulley. Parks are far more pleasant to visit than cemeteries, both before and after a death. You can pre-book exactly where you would like to be laid to rest, explains Mr Tulley’s website: “We do not bury in rows but wherever you or your family feel most happy with.” Some terminally ill people have family picnics where they will be buried. For a child to visit a grave site with happy memories of a then living parent is no small thing. 根据保险公司Sunlife的数据，英国现有超过270个绿色墓地，有9%的葬礼是绿色葬礼。绿色葬礼的吸引力不仅仅在于环保。Gordon Tulley和他的妻子经营着两个绿色葬礼公园，一个是林肯郡的一片草地，一个坐落在约克郡的树林里。无防腐处理的身体，或是被简单包裹，或是装在柳木棺中，接着被安葬在树下的浅层墓穴中。Tulley解释道，六英尺（传统情况下人被埋在地下六英尺）太深了，身体不容易被降解。相较于墓地，公园更能让人感到身心愉快。Tulley的网站上写道：“在这里，我们不会将人们成排安葬。你或你的家人可以自由地选择一片你们喜欢的安息之地。”有些临终病人会在他们选择的安息之地举行家庭野餐。对子女来说，当他们拜访墓地的时候，可以回想起与当时尚在人世的父母一起度过的快乐时光，这是很有意义的。 Such changes in “consumer preference” unnerve most undertakers. Responses range from outrage to embracing change; most stick their heads in the dirt. All these reactions were on display at the NFDA’s gathering. If it had a catchphrase, it was “They don’t know what they don’t know.” This refers to the undertaker’s supposed need to “educate” the public about the value of ceremony, commemoration and—crucially—the undertaker. But not every undertaker is fighting change with fearmongering or tut-tutting. Some see the necessity of change. According to an industry veteran, the convention—which opened to the song “Best Day Of My Life”—“used to be all hardware; hearses, coffins and embalming products. Now it’s all about services,” he says gesturing to a group of bright young things who help get undertakers onto Facebook and Instagram. “客户偏好”的变化令大多数的殡葬从业人员感到非常紧张。他们的反应不一，从出离愤怒者到拥抱变革者皆而有之。但大多数人还是采取了鸵鸟心态。在美国国家殡葬指导师协会的年会上，可以看到所有殡葬从业人员对于当前这种变革的反应。如果用一句流行的话来描述的话，就是：“他们不知道他们不知道什么。”这是相较于从业者们所谓的教育大众的需求而言的。殡葬从业者们认为，他们应当教导大众关于墓地和追悼会的价值，以及最为关键的是，关于殡葬服务者的价值。但并非所有的殡葬人员都选择用散播恐慌和强烈抗议来反对变革。有些人已经认识到了改变的必要性。就像某个资深从业者在美国国家殡葬指导师协会的年会上（年会以一首《生命中最美好的一天》开场）说的：“过去我们的年会上讨论的都是些硬件问题：灵车啊、棺木啊、防腐处理啊。如今，我们的讨论都集中在提供服务上。”他一边说着，一边指向一群积极帮助殡葬服务人员与脸书和 Instagram对接的年轻人。 Take Mr Olson. Trained as a music teacher, he bought a funeral business in Wisconsin, converted one of its two chapels into a dining hall and became the NFDA’s go-to guy for green funerals. Walker Posey, whose grandfather was a carpenter and whose father runs a traditional funeral business in South Carolina, wants one day to turn the family firm into a “life celebrations” company, doing weddings and baby showers as much as funerals. “To appeal to non-traditional folks,” Mark Musgrove, from Oregon, sells spaces for urns in a hippy-themed, refitted Volkswagen bus in his cemetery. “The need to grieve is unchanged,” he says. “You just need to find different ways to express it. A picture at a [barbecue] will be more meaningful to some than looking at a body.” Olson之前是一位音乐老师。他在威斯康星购买了一家葬礼公司。并把两个小教堂的其中一个改装成了餐厅。这个餐厅也成为了美国国家殡葬指导师协会关于绿色葬礼的咨询场所。Walker Posey的祖父是一个木匠，父亲在南卡罗来纳州经营着一家传统葬礼公司。Walker希望有一天能将家族公司变成一个“生命庆典”公司。这个公司可以举办婚礼、迎婴聚会，也可以举办葬礼。为了吸引一些非传统的顾客，来自俄勒冈州的Mark Musgrove为他的墓园找来了一辆嬉皮主题的改装后的甲壳虫大巴。顾客可以购买大巴上的空间用以放置骨灰缸。他说；“人们对于悼念的需求是不变的。你要做的就是去找到不同的表达方式。烤肉派对上的一张照片，可要比大家都低着头看着遗体来的有意义多了。” （译者注：迎婴聚会是专为8到9个月的临产孕妇举办的派对。） Nearly one in five American undertakers now offer dead-pet cremations; Mintel, a market-research firm, says one in four British pet-owners either have already arranged, or would like to in future, some sort of send-off for their furry friends. Mr Tulley sells “Togetherness Resting Places” in his green burial grounds, where pets and humans can be reunited “when the time comes”. 如今美国约有1/5的殡葬公司提供宠物火化服务。市场调研公司Mintel说，英国有1/4的宠物主，或是早就已经安排好了，或是正在规划如何送别他们的宠物。Tulley的绿色墓园提供“人宠共眠之地”，当“时间到来的时候”，主人和宠物可以再次相聚。 Another way to make money out of cremations is to do more with the ashes. Ascension, a British startup, releases them at “the edge of space”—after a 30km balloon ascent—and offers a video of the process. 火葬中另一种挣钱的方法是在骨灰上做文章。英国创业公司Ascension宣称可以将骨灰送到“太空边缘”，即将骨灰通过气球送到3万米的高空中，并全程录像。 Pointing to her earrings, Lori Cronin, who works in the industry, says “My Mom is in my ears, I take her wherever I go, I even swim with her.” Securi Gene, a Canadian Biotech firm, invites people to “celebrate life in its purest form” by sending in a blood sample of the deceased and $500, in return for which it will send a small stainless steel capsule with the extracted DNA. 殡葬从业人员 Lori Cronin指着自己的耳钉说：我将我的母亲带在耳朵上，它将跟随我去任何地方，我游泳的时候也不会摘下来。加拿大生物科技公司Securi Gene倡导人们用“最纯净的方式来庆祝生命”。只要花上500美元，把逝者的血液样本送到这家公司，你就会得到一个装着逝者DNA的不锈钢小胶囊。 The dead have two lives, explained Robert Hertz, a sociologist, in a paper in 1907: one in nature, as matter, and one in culture, as social beings. The internet greatly expands that second realm, and businesses are jumping in to help, with “virtual candles” and QR-codes that can be stuck to a tombstone linking to an online-tribute page. Facebook now offers “Memorialised Accounts” to clarify the status of deceased users. Many profiles are kept up and running years after a user dies. Over a third of those who have signed up with Cake, a startup trying to nudge people to share their end-of-life wishes, want their Facebook account to stay live after death. 社会学家Robert Hertz在1907年的一份研究中说：逝去的人拥有两种生命。一种是自然意义上的，即作为物质；一种是文化意义上的，即作为社会动物。而网络则将第二种意义上的生命进行了极大的延展。一些应运而生的行业也促进了这种发展，比如为逝者点燃“虚拟蜡烛”，或者是将二维码印制在墓碑上，通过扫描就可以连接到某个网络纪念页面。脸书开始提供“纪念账号”，以此来表明用户已经离世的状态。该账号将在用户死后被保留并运行多年。在Cake（一家鼓励人们分享临终愿望的创业公司）的注册用户中有1/3的人希望他们死后脸书能够保留他们的账号。 Franklin Roosevelt might have liked Cake. His family found the four pages with his instructions—for a “service of the utmost simplicity”, a simple wood coffin, no hearse, no embalming and a grave not lined with cement or stones—only a few days after most of those wishes had been ignored. It was this that led Jessica Mitford to write “The American Way of Death” in 1963: “Odds are that the undertaker will be the arbiter of what is a “suitable” funeral…Even if [the deceased] is the president of the United States.” In an updated edition published posthumously in 1998, Mitford was disappointed at how little had changed: prices had kept rising and undertakers still sold services customers did not know they could refuse or felt too embarrassed to question. 富兰克林·罗斯福可能会喜欢Cake。他希望举行一场极致简约的葬礼。一个简单的木棺，没有灵车，没有防腐处理。他希望自己死后不是与混凝土和石头为伍。但这些愿望大多都没有实现，因为他的家人恰恰是在葬礼结束的没几天后，才发现了总统先生的这份写着对自身葬礼要求的四页文件。正因为如此，Jessica Mitford才在1963年写下了《美国人的死亡方式》一书：“吊诡的是，我们居然需要让殡葬从业者主宰我们的葬礼，让他们来告诉我们什么才是一场‘合适’的葬礼。即使那个人是美国总统。”1998年Mitford逝世后出版了这本书的更新版。在书中，作者对这些年来该行业并未发生任何改变的现实感到非常失望：价格持续上涨，殡葬服务人员依然向顾客兜售着那些他们原本可以拒绝的服务，或出于窘迫而并未开口质疑的服务。
（译者注：富兰克林·罗斯福，美国历史上唯一连任四届的总统。他的葬礼万人空巷，举国同悲。而他的墓地坐落在其海德公园住宅附近的一个小花园中。整个墓地占地面积大约不到一英亩，长方型厚重宽阔的汉白玉的墓碑横卧在墓园中央。来源：网络） A noble undertaking 崇高的殡葬行业 Had Mitford a grave to rise from (she hasn’t; her ashes were scattered at sea), she might be pleased by some of the changes slowly shaking the industry, if acerbic about some of their aesthetics. Mr Lynch, who in 2013 co-wrote and published another book, “The Good Funeral”, finds his industry its own worst enemy. An emphasis on selling things, and thus “mistaking stuff for substance”, has led to public distrust. But he is a staunch defender of the essence of the undertaker’s role: “a promise to get the dead to where they need to go”. 如果Mitford能从棺材里爬起来（然而她并没有棺材，她的骨灰被洒入了海中），她会对现在殡葬行业发生的变化感到高兴，虽然她可能会在一些殡葬服务人员的审美观上挑刺。Lynch在2013年与他人合作出版了《好的葬礼》一书。Lynch认为，这个行业最大的竞争对手就是其本身。从业者过于强调销售物品，“将物质和本质混为一谈”，从而招致了公众的不信任。但他同时也坚定地捍卫着殡葬服务人员的角色本质，即让往生者，去到他们需要去的地方。
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来自： alayavijnana > 《生活时尚》
