Asian Graves, Japanese Headstone

They are called Haka. A typical Japanese grave is usually a family grave consisting of a stone monument, with a place for flowers, incense, and water in front of the monument and a chamber or crypt underneath for the ashes.

After cleaning the grave, family members offer foods and fruits that the deceased enjoyed when they were alive. Flowers are also always placed at the grave. Chrysanthemum flowers are very common, but any flower the deceased liked may also be placed.

To clean the gravestone! The relatives that visit the cemetery are the ones who typically clean the grave. They bring with them a bucket and a dipper, and pour water in order to wash the body of the family gravestone.

Cemeteries, on the other hand, are almost never found at shrines, because death is considered a cause of impurity in Shinto, and in Japan is dealt with mostly by Buddhism. The architecture and features of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples have melted together over the centuries.

Ohaka Mairi is a traditional Japanese custom of when Japanese people go and visit the graveyards of their ancestors and relatives. It is a very important Japanese ritual of going to honor and pay their respects to their ancestors.