Gravestones

When America was settled by the Europeans, they already had ideas of structured graveyards already in their culture. Throughout America, with rare exceptions, graveyards are fenced off, defined areas in cities and towns, but things are a little different in Japan. *gasp*

Walking around my town, I was amazed to see lone tombstones like the one pictured, just sitting by the side of the road. It is not fenced off or anything, just a stone that you could walk by a dozen times before you finally notice it for what it is, and these are all over the place.

Remember that Japan has been a country for over two thousand years, so I guess the place was a little emptier back then and people could just be buried where ever. Now that Japan is home to huge cities, real estate is a little more valuable and as a result, places are built around these little grave sites.

I'm not sure how old any of these are, since I can't read them, but some days when I walk past them, I'll see little offerings of bottled green tea or something in front of the stone (and they are full and sealed, so I know that no one had the bad taste to just drop their litter there) which leads me to believe that maybe their descendants still live in the area.

We do have ancient burial sites in America, Indian burial grounds, but we just throw some cement and build right over those.

...and then act all surprised when all these hostile ghosts show up.