With Japan’s ageing population and low birth-rate, it is probably not uncommon for the next generation or the one after to simply not be around to tend to ancestors’ graves and mausoleums. That was my first thought while walking round the cemetery next to Tennoji Temple. Not being able to read the inscriptions or dates, I wasn’t able to take this idea any further. It may even be that later generations are in fact not too far away, if you count two metres down. Not all of the headstones were in this state, but a significant number did offer pause for thought, pointing as they were, towards a collective that we will all eventually join. The weathered headstones displayed an advance from remembered to forgotten in indecent haste. Note: the cemetery is so huge that these photos may be from the section next to Anryuin Temple, and the last two from Ennei-in Temple.