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Live execution?
Mail*Link(r) SMTP Burmese executed on TV
This excerpt from a NYT article about Japan seemed peculiar. Was there an
execution on Burma's TV?
--------------------------------------
FOR JAPANESE, DEATH'S A CULT, BUT DYING'S A TABOO
(This ``separate buy'' article is from The Independent newspaper in
London.)
By TERRY MCCARTHY
c.1994 The Independent, London
(Distributed by the New York Times Special Features)
TOKYO For a nation that has come to be associated with the
cult of seppuku ``honorable'' suicide by cutting open one's
stomach with a sword and where death seems to have been almost
glorified by the stereotype of the fearless samurai, it is perhaps
a little surprising that in everyday life in Japan, it is such an
enormous taboo.
After going to a funeral, Japanese throw salt on their doorstep
before re-entering their houses to purify themselves and take away
the taint of death.
Talking about death is thought to bring bad luck. Doctors rarely
tell terminally ill patients the truth about their condition.
The flip side is an inordinately macabre interest in death from
a distance. Japanese television cannot get enough footage of dead
bodies in Rwanda. A recent documentary showed a live execution by
machete in Burma.
[stuff deleted]