August 17, 2025 • 54 mins
What happens when an anthropologist volunteers as a "demonstration corpse" at a Japanese funeral industry convention? Dr. Hannah Gould's extraordinary career studying death and dying takes her to places few of us will ever experience—from crematoriums crushing infant remains with teaspoons to coffin fashion shows complete with commentators and pumping music.
In this deeply fascinating conversation, we explore the strange contradiction of our society's relationship with death: our obsession with true crime and fictional mortality versus our reluctance to discuss real, everyday death. Hannah explains how even medical professionals receive minimal training on handling death conversations, leading young doctors to feel they've "failed" when patients die. Her work teaching "Death and Dying 101" aims to change this mindset, helping future healthcare workers understand that their job isn't preventing death but helping people "die later or die better."
The discussion takes unexpected turns as Hannah shares insights from death care conventions around the world. From robotic Buddhist priests reciting sutras for the dead to coffee ground with recycled gravestones, the death industry reveals itself as simultaneously innovative, practical, and occasionally absurd. We also explore the approaching phenomenon of "peak death"—where aging baby boomer populations will create unprecedented demand for death care services—and why young people seeking stable careers might consider this growing field.
Throughout our conversation, Hannah maintains that working with death requires strong convictions (either religious or atheistic), grounding in everyday joys, and crucially, a good sense of humor. She keeps her own cardboard coffin in her office, decorated by students who add their reflections on mortality each year—a perfect embodiment of her approach to making death approachable rather than fearsome.
Ready to rethink your relationship with mortality? Hannah's parting wisdom offers a liberating perspective: don't hold too tightly to plans, but do share your preferences with loved ones. After all, we're all going to die—why not find ways to talk about it that bring us closer together rather than push us apart?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to another episode of no Ordinary
Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I am your host, chris Barron,and each week I sit down with a
guest whose job is far fromordinary.
We explore how they got thereand what it's really like behind
the scenes, and then they'lldeep dive into the single most
(00:26):
unforgettable experience oftheir career.
Today, I've got someone a bitdifferent for you.
My guest is someone whose jobcenters around an interesting
and often taboo subject.
Dr Hannah Gould is ananthropologist who studies death
and dying.
Hannah Gould is ananthropologist who studies death
(00:46):
and dying.
Everything from the ritualsthat we perform to the realities
of the death care industry andits workers, which you can
imagine, takes her to some darkbut pretty fascinating places
that few of us get to see.
In Hannah's big story, sherelives the time that she
attended a massive death careconference in Japan and ended up
being on stage as ademonstration corpse, which is a
(01:09):
very funny story.
So stick around for that.
I'm going to give a quicktrigger warning here for this
episode.
While the conversation we haveis mostly fun and insightful, we
do, of course, touch on sometopics around death which may be
difficult or confronting forsome listeners, so please do use
discretion.
With all that said, I amincredibly excited to bring you
(01:33):
guys this conversation withHannah.
You are listening to noOrdinary Monday.
Let's get into the show.
All right, hannah Gould,welcome to the podcast.
How are you doing today?
Hi, I'm doing well.
(01:57):
Cold, yeah, chilly.
Brisbane Sorry Melbourne, sorry, not Brisbane.
No no, no, we don't do Brisbane,we're called Melbourne.
Yeah, so it's actually, I don'tknow, maybe a couple of years
since we last saw each otherface-to-face when we were
working on a documentary aboutdeath for the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Up in Sydney a documentary about death.
One of the weirder emails andphone calls I've ever received.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And that's coming from a death researcher.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And from a death researcher.
So you know, my inbox is justfilled with some absolute pals
members of the public, varioustech people, doctors et cetera,
just asking me for my hot takesabout cremation et cetera.
But yeah, no, you stood out.
Nice, Very fun experience, butalso again, one of the oddest
(02:49):
experiences of uh, filming thatand then trying to smuggle a
small corpse model throughdomestic airport in sydney so
basically yeah, some contextrequired for that anecdote, yeah
so we were, yeah, so we weremaking a documentary for the abc
about, uh, you know, death anddying.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And uh, we had this great host, matt, who's a
comedian, and um, I think wewere kind of like, oh, how do we
sort of make this interestingfor people and show all the
different ways that you can,like, get?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
prepared or treated after you die?
How do you get rid of a body?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
yeah.
And then so, um, obviously I,you know, found you and your
work and I thought, oh, hannah,be great for this.
And I email you say, hey, anna,do you want to come and bury a
tiny model of matt okine in?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
seven or eight different ways we can like.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Literally, we're going to flame him with, like a
little torch.
We're going to bury him at sea.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We're going to flame him with like a little torch.
We're going to bury him at sea,we're going to.
Well, I still have one fromthat, from that recording?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, I noticed he's on this in the shelf behind you.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Try to place my office.
But one of the things was I didhave to kind of you know, I
only took hand language, so Ihad to take him back through my
hand language in Sydney airport.
And what I didn't realize atthe time, which I must have knew
, is that it has like a wireframe through the middle of the
paper machine yeah.
So it goes through the scannerand it comes up with this tiny
(04:14):
little and he's in a coffin,right.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I get stopped.
I don't know if I ever told youthis.
I got stopped and my bags gotopened.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I don't think you told me no.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I got my bags got opened.
I don't think you told me no, Igot my bags got opened and they
were like I mean they didn'tlike outright say why do you
have a small, you know voodoodoll in your bag?
Of a famous Australian comedian, but I think it was implied and
I just kind of had to look atthem and be like I have an
interesting job.
I'm sorry, what do you wantfrom me here?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Like is this illegal?
Did you?
Did you tell them, like, whatyou're at that point?
Did you have to explain like Iam a death researcher?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
or I just kind of said I've just.
I just kind of said oh, I'vebeen up here filming some tv and
this is one of the props.
Is there anything like itdoesn't?
I think I said it doesn'tcontain liquid it hasn't got
organs.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's like did.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think it's like I don't know.
I mean, I imagine that that islike one of those jobs where you
just find the absolute weirdeststuff in people's bags and you
just have to really yeah, stoneface ignore it, because people
can carry whatever they cancarry, but um yeah, I think
certainly like the miniminiature coffin that matt
signed for me.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Certainly didn't necessarily help with the yeah,
um yeah, great experienceobviously like, yeah, it was
super fun, but, um, I mean, Iguess, with all that said, what,
what would you say is the mostinteresting way to explain what
you do for a living?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
wow, I mean, in some ways, um, my job is very boring
in the sense that it's a verynormal job, I think I I work and
I teach at a university.
Um, I suppose the odd thingabout my job is that I do that
researching two verynon-controversial topics, which
is religion and death.
Um, yeah, and specifically, Ifocus a lot on dead bodies and
(06:05):
what to do with them and how wetreat them and like how our
religious responses to them havechanged.
So my job, basically, is to tryand understand, like, what is
going on with death and dying inAustralia and also I do work in
Northeast Asia and Japan andKorea and then to try and use
(06:25):
those findings to create somekind of meaningful change.
Right, so, educating studentsabout policy, policy change kind
of thing yeah, well, first ofall like educating students to
be more comfortable with deathand talk about death, um,
particularly medical students.
I teach a lot of medicalstudents about how to say the D
word and then also policy change.
(06:47):
So things like big questionslike should we be allowed to
bury our pets with us incemeteries, or how much does
death cost, how much shoulddeath cost?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Who should pay for a funeral, which is a big question
, massive question, biggerquestion, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Which you know all really normal, except then you
add the element of staring intothe existential void that is our
mortality every day.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I think I can just imagine it like using the
cocktail party test, like you'resort of milling around and
someone comes up to you and saysoh hey, what did you do?
You're like oh, I'm an academic, I'm anthropologist and they
start to glaze over.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
And then you're like I about death and they're like
oh, okay, yeah, I have lied toadmitting an uber driver I've
got to say, which I actuallythink is a really good test of
if your job is weird, is like,do you?
Like an uber driver because Iif you were tired and you're
just trying to get in a carsomewhere and they ask you what
you do and you're like lookingat them and you think I don't
(07:53):
know if I really was like whyare you here?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
oh?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I'm here for the annual cemeteries convention
yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So what is it like?
Clearly, people's reactions aretheir eyes go a little bit wide
and go oh, that's weird.
But what is it?
What is it about?
Death that, I don't know,fascinates people, or like.
What I find interesting is likethere's a weird way that we
treat death in some ways thatwe're so obsessed with it, with
like true crime, so much like inlike media, for example, like
(08:24):
tvs, movie shows, the movies.
So much true crime, death,afterlife, paranormal, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
But when it comes to real life,it's like no, don't talk about
it yeah, this is the great kindof contradiction.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So I mean the kind of the theory that we've rejected
now is that death is taboo orlike that.
No one ever wants to talk aboutdeath or think about death.
And exactly what you're sayingis like well, no, because people
bloody love true crime podcasts.
I'm in melbourne, everyone'sbeen following the mushroom
murderer.
That's been all the news.
That's all that all we've gotyou know, and and also, like you
(08:57):
know, video games.
It seems like the more gruesomethe death, the better, right,
like people are really attractedto this kind of extraordinary
deaths, right, and they're notso interested in thinking about
death in the kind of normal,banal, aka the kinds of deaths
that they imagine could happento them.
Right, and I think that'salways made a lot more sense to
(09:20):
me.
It's that it remains taboo, butthe nature of taboo is that
humans, like humans, desperatelylove to break taboos.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
We're just not necessarily so comfortable doing
it in public.
I mean, I think the thing thatis he mentioned earlier that you
do a lot of work with, likemedical students, doctors,
people in the medical field,like those are arguably some of
the people that are closest tothe conversation, because every
day they may see people die,they may actually be the people
that are trying to prevent deathand all that sort of stuff, and
they're some of the people thathave the hardest time talking
(09:51):
like I'm just I was so surprisedthat like people in that field
aren't so, um, well conversed inlike talking about death and
like facing death and dealingwith death and knowing what to
do, so like, like, just tell melike what, what have you
experienced when you're workingwith them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So we've only been teaching like death and dying
101 at Melbourne uni since likea couple of years now.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And before that there was nothing.
It was just like you are adoctor, you go and save lives.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
This is an elective subject and really they don't
even in their core, they don'teven really get you know.
There's like how to deliver badnews.
I suppose Some training.
It's not you know, in thefundamental curriculum, but it's
just kind of other things.
Like, you know, cremationversus burial, or what should
(10:41):
you do to the body, how do youhandle a body at the point of
death or dying so that it, youknow, gets to the family in the
best condition, for example,like super practical?
Or like you know, should yousay the d word?
Like what does the researchactually say about how to talk
to people about death and dyingand what families want and what
patients want?
(11:02):
And that kind of thing is prettyshocking in the sense that it's
not being educated to doctorsand I think it's kind of sad,
not only because people don'thave the language or they don't
have to deal with it.
But what I always think isextraordinary is, like you know,
the students we get in deathand dying and the medical
subject.
We get them like 12 weeks intotheir medical degree.
(11:23):
They've only you know, they'veonly just started medical
subject.
We get them like 12 weeks intotheir medical degree.
They've only, you know, they'veonly just started, yeah, and
already 12 weeks in, they areincredibly scared but also
guilty, like they genuinelythink that if somebody dies it's
their fault and they've failedright murder yeah, this idea of
failure is like the goal ofmedicine is to save people and
(11:44):
if somebody dies, then I havenot done medicine well.
Like death is death is.
The goal of medicine is to savepeople and if somebody dies,
then I have not done medicinewell like death is, death is the
literal anti, is the enemy,like we're constantly fighting
him off.
Yet it's not this fault forthese like young trainee doctors
, because, like that is how themedical system has been, apart
from, like some fields likepalliative medicine, who are
obviously brilliant on this.
That is how the majority andyou know it slipped into our
(12:06):
everyday language.
You know, you think aboutcancer like it's a battle, it's
a fight, you know all these kindof things.
And so obviously, if somebodydies, they lose their battle
with cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
No one ever just dies Like you have to lose a battle
with cancer, which I think isterrible terminology.
So we kind of have to do a lotof work.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Have you got a better way of phrasing it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
They had cancer and then they died.
Well, they died from cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It just doesn't have to be a war.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be a war.
I mean, we talk about that.
We talk about like should youuse the D word, and you know you
don't always have to use it butthere's so many numerous
examples, like pretty horrificexamples of a lack of
communication or a failure ofcommunication and families not
clocking on to the fact thattheir loved one's going say
things like we're going to stopmedical interventions or we're
(13:07):
recommending palliation, orwe're moving you to comfort care
.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
They'll never actually say you will die.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Like.
We suspect that you will diewithin the next however many
months.
So we're not sure when you'regoing to die, but we suspect
that this you know.
We're pretty sure this illnesswill kill you.
You will die.
We don't think there's anythingwe can do to prevent that have
you ever thought about?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I mean, you've ever sort of yourself, yeah, keep it
a bit nicer, but like if youwere in that position yeah like
getting that news.
Would you not want them tosugarcoat it, or at least
sugarcoat it for your family, orwould you?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
be like I've been in that position.
Just say like it is.
I've been in that positionthough, like I've seen.
So my dad died.
One of the reasons I got intothis whole work is like my dad
died 2013, like 13 years ago.
12 years ago, I was super young,I was 22, 23, um.
I thought I was very mature andtotally able to deal with that
(14:05):
knowledge.
When it happened, um, you know,and I was like he was in
hospice and I was in hospicewith him and he had not accepted
the fact that he was dying andwas kept asking about, like,
potential treatments, that sortof stuff.
And I saw the doctor come inand kind of just entertain his
idea that there might bepossible treatments like that,
(14:29):
and I was like this isridiculous, like and I think
part of it is that, you know, Iwonder if it's that doctors are
really worried about destroyinghope, right, that they think
hope is so important, right?
We can't let people give up orhave an existential crisis, to
which I can only reply like it'sdeath.
Of course you're going to havean existential crisis.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That's kind of the point you're not supposed to be
okay with it, but it doesn'tmean you can't deal with it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, and I think it's exactly right, a hundred
percent of those things.
You're like you don't have tobe okay with it, like you don't,
it's not something.
And that getting out of thatmindset for students like you
know this is not something youcan solve, it's not something.
And getting out of that mindsetfor students like you know this
is not something you can solve,right, it's not a problem for
you to solve.
And so I try and get them tothink about, instead of like
their goal being life-saving is,I say to them you know every
(15:17):
single patient that you see,whether you're a podiatrist or
pediatrics or chiropractic, youknow not just the medical
profession, any kind of health,every single person.
Your job is either to help themdie later or die better.
Yeah, but they're both going to, they're all going to die.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
No one's going to live forever.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No one has ever made it out of here alive yeah, we're
all you know.
So you're not saving them fromdeath.
You're either delaying it ormaking it better, and hopefully
both like have you?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
have you had any feedback from those students
about that course?
Have they gone?
All you know it's completelychanged the way I've thought
about it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Or the first time that a patient did die on me,
you know I would thought back towhat you're saying, blah, blah
that I've had medical studentsactually who have come into the
program being like I'm reallyterrified of death and I don't
want this to be part of my job.
And thankfully, luckily,through talking about it and
exposing and removing some ofthat fear, they're now far more
(16:19):
comfortable.
I think in the conversationsthey're having and hopefully
also when they then go to thehospital and see a death you
know, declaration verificationthey feel more comfortable,
right, and they can be betterfor the family and for their
colleagues as well.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned your father's passing
or say the father died.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, he died, it's fine.
It's so natural for me to evensay to someone who's experienced
that he lost.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I was like he's not, like he's not behind the couch,
like we know where he is he losthim, yeah, yeah when he died um
, so yeah, your father died,your dad died and um, but I like
I mean on the podcast, I loveto sort of understand people's
origin stories, so that'sobviously your origin story into
the death industry.
But but even before that, whatdid you want to be as a kid?
(17:13):
Do you?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
well, when I was, uh, six, uh, when I was six, chris,
I wanted to be either aballerina or a fairy, as my mom
likes to remind me.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
When did those dreams get crushed?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The two viable career choices.
That I no.
I mean.
I was reflecting on this theother day, I think I was always
a very precocious, very studiousyoung child and I distinctly
remember the first time I metsomebody who was like a young
woman who had a doctorate, whowas studying for her PhD, and I
thought thought oh my god, likeI could do that, like I would.
(17:48):
I want to get a PhD.
That's the thing I want to do.
I want to work at a universityand I was at Oxford for my
master's and I was studyingreligion.
So I've always been reallyinterested in different
religious, cultural beliefs andspecifically I mean in this kind
of the fundamental question ofdeath, which is like how does,
(18:09):
how does matter relate tospirits?
It's kind of an odd way ofputting it, but you know, um, a
cross, a crucifix is just acrucifix.
How does it become holy?
Right, like?
An altar is just an altar.
It's a piece of wood.
Sometimes they're mass-producedpieces of wood, they're carved
Like how does that feel?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But we imbue them with power.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, how do we imbue them with power?
Like, how do we imagine wheredoes the power come from?
When does a thing become holy,when does it become more than
just stuff, which ironically iskind of the opposite of the body
, right, like this is a thingthat was human and at some point
it stops maybe being human andis now a thing like it was a
(18:50):
subject and now is an objectyeah, and so there's a process
by which the kind of in, youknow, this kind of spirit, you
know, leaves the body at somepoint, and I, I say spirit not
in a particularly religious way,but like in any kind of this
recognition that this is morethan just stuff.
And like what is the process bywhich this thing, which is more
(19:13):
than stuff, eventually does justbecome stuff, or does it ever
become stuff which, like, is nota?
You know?
I think I got my PhD some timeago.
I'm not going to answer thisone.
Yeah.
I suspect it may be afundamental question of the
human condition, as opposed toan easy topic.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I started studying like religion and Buddhism and
Buddhist materiality, and itjust kind of so happened or,
weirdly enough, the kind of theBuddhist altars that I was
focusing on are also wherepeople make offerings to the
ancestors, and so I became moreand more engaged in ancestor
worship, veneration, death.
And then my dad died and bigquestion right Like, what on
(19:55):
earth is going on?
I remember this distinct momentof funeral planning for him,
where there was I don't know ifyou've ever arranged a funeral.
Have you ever arranged afuneral, chris?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
No, I mean touch with them being lucky not to most
people like probably, if they'relucky, will only do one or two
in their lives, right?
Most people who are privilegedenough to you know outlive their
children to you know, if you'relucky, you'll probably one or
two, which is great.
But I remember this distinctmoment they bring all these like
(20:29):
glossy books to your house.
They did in the day.
I'm sure it's on iPads now.
But they're like catalogues ofcoffins and they all have these
absolutely naff, terrible namesthat are like Mahogany's Kiss or
rosewood and jewel, you knowlike worse than paint colors,
(20:50):
kind of terrible made up namesfor these brands.
And I just had this like momentof sitting there and trying to
like pick a coffin, thinkinglike who on earth designed this?
Like, why is this the stuffthat we've decided is the stuff
that we want for the dead?
Yeah, and also, you know, beingsomeone who's quite a
materialist, like in the senseof like quite an atheist, you
(21:11):
know I was like I'm just dead,it doesn't matter what box he's
in, like why am I, why am Ishelling out tens of thousands
of dollars for mahogany's kissor whatever the coffin is?
um, yeah and so I think thatjust like reaffirmed this idea
that, no, this is the thing Ishould do, this is the thing I
should study, which is is deathand dying in australia and and
(21:31):
kind of that relationshipbetween stuff and and spirit um,
cool, so you mentioned um,you've done a lot of work in
australia.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You've done a lot of work in, obviously, like asia
you know korea, japan as well,and you know just observing how
different people, differentcountries, different cultures
deal with death and the ritualsaround death.
I'm just really curious, likewhat are some of the most
unsettling or horrifying orbeautiful things that you've
(22:02):
seen when you, when you'relooking at all it could be in
Australia or anywhere else.
Have you worked?
I think one of it could be inAustralia or anywhere else that
you've worked.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think one of the weirdest things about working in
death is that it's bothhorrifying and beautiful at the
same time.
A lot of the time and that'slike it almost it always struck
me as almost like too muchinformation was going into my
brain, like a real challenge toprocess and understand what had
just happened.
I mean, obviously I have thisjob, which is similar to your
(22:30):
job in many ways that you know,I go into these worlds, I go
into these workplaces for a fewweeks or a few months and I, you
know, I learn how to cremate abody and I learn how to bury
somebody, or maybe not similarto what you do every day.
You know, I get to experiencethese insights into people's
world and I have to rememberthat, like all those people are,
that is their day to day, thatis their nine to five.
(22:51):
Right, and like I don't thinkwe often think about like
someone's nine to five beingcremating a body, but that is
somebody's, that's a lot ofpeople's nine to five is go to
work, cremate 10 12 people.
Go home.
Go to work cremate 10 12 people.
Go home.
Go to the footy on the weekend,go to the pub.
You know, tell really bawdyjokes to deal with the emotional
(23:12):
stress of having to, and theydo these people, like they do,
experience stress?
I guess, yeah, I, it's reallyfunny because I'm always kind of
almost hesitant to sharestories, because I think I'm
trying to be, I try and be verycareful about what I share and I
try and, um, I will tell you astory that's quite confronting.
But, um, one of the hardestthings working at the creme is
(23:38):
like, I think, you know, not forme, like going in there for a
few days, but for the people whoactually work there nine to
five is obviously children andchild death and having to
cremate children remainsPartially because so little of a
child makes it through thecrematorium right that it
(24:01):
produces such little material.
And you know, thinking aboutdeath and the sacred like, if
there is one thing that issacred across societies, it is
children, and so children dyingis such a tragedy in every
circumstance.
And so people working in thecrematorium you'd think, oh,
they must be immune to this bynow.
(24:22):
This is their day-to-day.
But the same time, like whenthere is a kid that comes
through that is the same age assomeone's child, you know, child
who works there, that's areally tough day for everyone at
the cram.
I mean, look, I always struggleto share it because I don't
know how much people want toknow.
But you know there's a realexperience of, of just talking
(24:45):
to this guy who went to the cramand we're just having this
casual conversation, and whilewe were having that casual
conversation he was crushing thebones of an infant with the
back of a teaspoon.
Because that was the likeusually cremation you, you put
the remains through a wholemachine which is like a, a
(25:07):
cramulator, and it produces thisfine ash and, like you know,
usually for most human remainsthere's a lot of ash.
But when it's a child, like thecremation staff do all the best
that they can to make sure thatall of the potential, like you
know, every little tiny bit,because there's so little gets
to the, the family or parents,and so the best way to do it is
to do it manually.
So little gets to the family orthe parents, and so the best
(25:27):
way to do it is to do itmanually.
Right, and I just think it wassuch an odd I mean, of all the
uses of the term, surreal, thatis probably the one that really,
you know, I'm just chatting tohim about work and life and that
and he's doing this kind ofincredibly traumatic, meaningful
I think, I almost think aboutit as just like superlative.
(25:51):
It is everything too much inthat experience?
Right, like everything too muchis happening and then, like he
does, like maybe three or fourof those a day and then goes
back to his family and hasdinner and goes to the
Cremations or.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Children like crashing, you know so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I mean depending on the crematorium and the capacity
and you know all these otherquestions, and I think it kind
of one of the things that's likeso hard to talk about those
experiences, I think, becausethey affect a lot of people and
obviously you know, if peopleyou know have kids, imagining
that's so horrific.
But I also think that it's soincredibly sad that we don't
(26:39):
imagine that more, in the sensethat we never think about the
people whose job that is.
We desperately want them to doa good job, we want them to be
good people and we want them todo their job well because we
need them to.
But we don't pay them very welland you know, when they say
(27:01):
they work at a crematorium, wemaybe treat them with a bit of
stigma or taboo and we think, oh, you must be so how could you
possibly do that job?
But somebody needs to do it andwe really want them to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
well, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And so it's this kind of this.
You know, as horrible as thatnot horrible, but as intense as
that experience is, it's like mygosh, you know, know, you
really hope that on your worstday there's someone who is
willing to do that, yeah, and iswilling to do that work they're
good at their job and they takethey take pride in their job
(27:35):
and blah they don't do it yeah,and if it means that they have
to tell some like bawdy jokes toget through the day, like I am
all for good for them.
Do whatever they need to do,because that is not.
You know, I was only there fora couple of weeks, but like that
is not something that I coulddo.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So, um, on the show, we like people to come on and
share sort of the I guess, thecraziest experience of their
career.
Sometimes that's a single day,sometimes an event.
Um, obviously you've done andseen a lot in your time.
I'm wondering if you can sharesome a story or stories from,
(28:13):
from your experiences um.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So one of the oddest experiences is and I think this
is probably drives home hownormal but also odd this whole
sector is is like there's lotsof really big funerals,
cemeteries, crematorium,industry conventions around the
world.
Famously, the American one isoften in Vegas, which is super
(28:35):
fun to you know.
Go to Vegas and look at rowsand rows of the latest and
greatest new inventions incoffins Wow.
But the one that I often go tois in Tokyokyo, japan, and that
again is like in a bigconvention center.
You wake up in the morning, geta coffee, go to the convenience
store, you're there, you'reready and you go into this
convention center and it's justlike several football fields
(28:58):
worth of death, tech, death,merch, death, stuff.
Like it's a trade show, rightyeah yeah, and it any.
Every industry has a trade show,and the death care sector has a
trade show, and so you know myday this is a few years ago,
(29:18):
this industry convention calledindex, and my day kind of began
with witnessing a roboticBuddhist priest recite sutras
for the dead.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Moved on to Did it look like a robot or?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
did it look like an android kind of-.
Oh, it's a robot.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's called Pepper.
It's a robot created bySoftBank and it was designed
well.
It was used in this casebecause they don't have enough
Buddhist priests to recitesutras for the aging population,
oh my God.
So I started there, which is atotally very weird start to your
morning, and then I walked over.
I mean, this is all in a singleday.
(30:00):
I walked over to where someonewas giving out free samples of
coffee, but the coffee beanswere being ground with a
recycled gravestone, so it waslike two big pieces of marble
that they had created like amillstone of delicious coffee.
So you've kind of been freakedout by the Buddhist robot.
(30:23):
Then you get your coffee.
So you've kind of been freakedout by the Buddhist robot.
Then you get your coffee.
You walk over to the people whoare selling mobile pet
crematoriums, where they'lldrive around the countryside
with a van that has a furnaceand cremate your pet on the spot
for you Sure my God, transitionto the kind of fashion
(30:49):
designers for funeral dress andend up, in my case, at this
school that offers um, likeritual dressing, mortuary
dressing for the dead.
In japan, people might befamiliar.
There's quite a famous oscaraward-winning film called
Departures Okuribito in Japanese, which is about this quite
traditional practice in a smallpart of Japan of like washing
(31:12):
and dressing the dead in frontof the family.
So the mortician would come intothe home, the dead is laid out
in the kind of living room andthey would basically, you know,
clean, wash, dress, then changethe clothes, switch the clothes,
put the makeup on for the dead,and this is all like performed
in front of the family and it'sdone this extremely ritualized,
careful manner so that, like, nopart of bare skin is ever
(31:38):
visible to the family and it'sall incredibly respectful and
it's done like in a veryritualized, beautiful fashion.
Um, they're having so you walkup to this, you know Okuribidō
Academy who are who are teachingyoung people this, this skill
about how to dress the dead, andthey're having like a.
(31:58):
They're having this competitionfor funeral professionals and
there's three categories Hottestmonk Important Ikeman, yeah,
but like hot in the sense oflike the full package, so also
can give you know greatest, givea great sermon but also looks
(32:19):
good.
Hottest monk Miss funeralattendant also can give you know
greatest great give a greatsermon but also looks good you
know hottest monk, miss funeralattendant.
Like miss universe, but likemiss funeral attendant, yeah
yeah, and then, um, they werehaving like a, a corpse dressing
competition.
That was for, like, who candress the body the quickest,
(32:41):
most most professional, mostbeautiful?
Yeah, you know on a live stagewith live music pumped in the
background oh my God With likecommentators, and you know
immediately yes, I will be ademonstration corpse.
This is what my life has beenleading up.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
To Hand went straight up, hand straight up.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And like it should be said also, I'm the only white
person there, I'm the onlyforeigner there, I speak
Japanese, you know, you can getaround, like, so you know, this
is mostly.
It's not even for media.
It's like this is an internalspace, this is by the funeral
sector for the funeral sector,right, and this is for people
who, which I think, are alwaysinteresting spaces to be in, but
(33:20):
I was, which I think, arealways interesting spaces to be.
I was like I will, I will dothis, this is what I want to do
in life.
And it was just entirely, again, the world's surreal is not a
great word, but like it was justa, in some ways, an out-of-body
experience, because, so youknow, so wait, so it was like
three, like more.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Were you the only one ?
Or there was?
You were like, you were just ademonstration corp and multiple
people were like competing tolike dress you for funeral.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Oh, no, there was multiple people, multiple
demonstration corpses.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Okay On the event on this occasion.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I mean, I've done this a few times at this
convention.
I think they must think I'm abit obsessed now.
But the first time it happenedit was just like you walked up
to this, like stand at aconvention center and there's
like tatami mats out and there'slike a pile of white kimono you
buried in white in japantraditionally.
Um, I was like white kimono outand they kind of say we're
(34:08):
gonna have a demonstration.
Is there a volunteer from thecrowd?
Immediately, yes, yes, this iswhat I want to do.
Um, this is after the robotpriest and the milk ground
coffee.
And I'm like I'm already there.
I'm like sign me up, now is mytime.
And so I was like okay.
And I said well, wait, what doyou need me to do?
(34:31):
I'm just like wearing, like youknow, suit, whatever.
I was like what do you meandoing is just like we'll just
pretend to be dead and lie down.
And I was like okay, butimmediately.
I mean I immediately screwed itup because like the first thing
that happens is you're lyingthere and he comes and the
person who's doing the dressingcomes and bows over the corpse.
But I am so ingrained, havinglived in japan at that point for
(34:54):
multiple months that I like bow, as I'm like there as the
corpse, you know, like, likethis, like you know, thank you
for your stop moving, you'redead.
So I failed immediately.
But after that it was just likereally odd.
They obviously didn't undressme, they were just putting on
the clothing that they wouldusually put on in that case, but
(35:16):
it was.
It kind of felt like a reallyrough massage that had
absolutely no care about what itmust feel like because, as it
struck me this person's notreally thinking how the dead
will appreciate it or not.
(35:39):
This is a visual performance forthe people sitting in front, so
it's just kind of like peopleshoving a lot of fabric
underneath you very quickly andlike trying to wrap you in the
right materials and like it waskind of a monty python comedy of
errors.
Like my feet were too big forlike whatever the japanese size,
like feet coverings they hadand like.
(36:02):
And were they laughing or werethey kind of getting a?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
little bit stressed because this is a like, whatever
the Japanese size, like feetcoverings they had and like.
And were they laughing or werethey kind of getting a little
bit stressed?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Because this is a competition right, no hyper
serious hyper serious, oh.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Really.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Nothing can unflappable.
Unflappable Because that'stheir whole job is to be
unflappable I mean funeralattendants, funeral directors,
anyone who runs a funeral, Imean get them to organize
anything in your life becausethey've got skills.
But also completely unflappablebecause, like it is their job
to appear calm, collected, likeeverything's perfect, even if
(36:32):
it's all falling apart, whichoften is, because that's the
other thing.
Funerals often go wrong.
They're just events that thingsoften go wrong.
So this is all kind of like abit of a common areas and I
can't see anything.
I just really want to seesomething, trying to open my
eyes as a dead person and I mean, it's fine in the end, but it's
just I.
That is one of many ways inwhich I just became dressed as a
(36:54):
corpse and oh my god, but wait,did you, did you, did you win?
uh, my guy was like the.
Yeah, he was like the head,he's like the head.
I went to the top for my firstcorpse dressing experience, wow.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But have subsequently .
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So you were like yeah , I got the gold treatment.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
You were a good corpse.
You were a very good corpse.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I was a very good corpse.
It's a skill that you don'treally think about and then you
end up at some point in yourlife thinking it's like a real
record scratch moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So one of the things that we actually covered on the
documentary when we workedtogether on that one- um or you
were part of, but it's.
It's this idea of peak death,you know oh, yeah, and it's
something that I have beenfollowing kind of separately,
just the fact that population isin decline yeah which
essentially means in the comingyears we're going to have a lot
(37:50):
more dead people than peoplebeing born, but essentially just
the population of aging peopleand people dying will increase.
Um, I, there's several things Iwant to go into on this.
Obviously, like you know,there's careers in the death
industry and that market and allthat stuff.
But like, just talk us through,like that sort of concept,
(38:13):
what's happening, right?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
now.
Yeah, I mean, look, if you'relooking for a career path that
AI will not disrupt handlingdead bodies Can I introduce that
?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Except if it's robots into priests.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, god damn it.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
The robots will win again.
So, yeah, peak death is alittle bit of an amorphous
concept.
It's not very well studied yetand it's something I'm actually
hoping to do a big project on ina couple of years, but it is
something that we've noted alittle bit more in aged care.
But peak death is basically aphenomenon where more people die
than ever before as a result ofour demographics, and they are
(38:56):
demographics of ageingpopulations and particularly
demographics of populations thatexperienced a post-World War II
baby boom and then subsequentlythe baby boomers have not had
as many kids as their generation, as it were.
So we've got this kind of bulgein our demographics, and I
(39:17):
think the youngest baby boomeris just past 65 this year, which
is what Australia classifies asan older person.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I always find this quite awkward to talk about
because I'm a millennial andthere's something particularly.
Yeah.
So when I stand up in front ofa room of people, particularly
when I'm asking for funding, andsay the baby rumors will die,
like you know, bless her, herheart.
My professor here.
She's like well, you can't saythat.
I'm like what do you mean?
I can't say that she's likewell, but I don't want to hear
(39:47):
it.
I'm like well, but millennialswill die.
I'm fine saying that there's no, it's not an offense.
This is not an accusation yeahyou.
You're older australians.
You're gonna die soon.
This is fine like this is whathappens to everyone.
But the question is not so muchlike there's a two-part
question.
One is like does our death caresystem, does our death care
(40:08):
system, as it currently stands,have enough capacity to handle
what's going to happen?
Do we have enough crematorium?
Do we have enough graves?
Do we have enough professionalswho work in the sector, whether
that be a grief counsellor or aprobate lawyer or I don't know?
a crematorium officer, whateverit is you know, is this are we
(40:28):
going to be able to handle this?
And you know, add to that thespicy, fun, exciting perspective
of a pandemic.
Throw that in somewhere, youknow there, that could also put
pressure.
And then I think the second onethat's also kind of interesting
is what is it about thatgeneration that might change our
relationship with death, bothin how they approach death and
(40:51):
how they choose to die, but thenalso like how their children
choose to bury and cremate andcommemorate them?
So not to say that there's bothlike challenges and
opportunities, but there's likea concern about capacity in my
mind.
But then there's also like alot of interesting questions
about like well then, what willthis look like?
(41:12):
Because I don't, we haven'treally hit there yet Like it's
coming.
I'm deeply, I've always wantedto write a book that's just
called boomers death to boomers,but no one will let me that's
gonna be a tough one to getpublished.
Clickbait title and then a verycompassionate and considered
(41:33):
book which is just about yeahyeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I mean I said like in today's world, especially for
like X Gen Z, the job marketdoesn't look as strong as it may
have been in our generation.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Putting, it mildly yeah, things are not getting
right for my young students whoare thinking how to make a
living.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
The death care industry is a strong place to
look.
I mean, if people wereinterested.
I mean there's a lot of workthat is going to a lot of demand
for work in that sector.
But, what you've worked with alot of these people.
What does it sort of depend?
I mean, there's a huge spectrumof roles you can take in the
death care industry, but I meangenerally, what does it take to
(42:18):
be someone that sort of workswith death every day?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
to be someone that sort of works with death every
day.
Yeah, it's an interestingquestion because, you know,
someone who creates bodies everyday can be a rather different
skill set to somebody who issitting down with families to
arrange a funeral.
Yeah, so you know, there's awhole group of people who say
their job is horticulture andtheir job is to, you know, look
(42:47):
after cemeteries and do thelawns and do the botanical
gardens and maybe dig a grave sothat's an area that you could
get, but, um, what does it taketo deal with death every day?
I think one of the interestingthings is that I think we would
go back to talking about, like,death taboos and death anxiety.
(43:09):
What I find really interestingis that there's two groups of
people that we tend to thinkthat more religious people might
have less death anxiety, right,like, oh, you've got an idea of
the afterlife, therefore,you're not going to be scared of
death.
What the research, research hasfound and this is ongoing is
that actually, if you havestrong religious belief or if
(43:30):
you have strong atheistconvictions, then you're less
afraid of death, and it's thegreat kind of uncertainty that
is what tends to make peoplemore anxious about death, right,
so it's almost like an invertedu in terms of, um, death
anxiety, and I think you don'tneed to have all the answers or
(43:52):
have, like you know, a total,you know idea of what's going to
happen to you after you die.
You know it's a thing to enterinto death and to work in death,
but you need either some kindof belief or some kind of deep
pragmatism.
I think that's really important, like you need to kind of be
okay with going to work in an ina, in a field that can very
(44:15):
emotionally taxing anddistressing.
And also, like go home and goto the footy, like have
something that grounds you, thatis part of your life, that's
good and wholesome, and it'syour dog and it's running a
marathon and it's knitting, it'swhatever it is.
And then I think you, I meanit's like a requirement, which
is that you must have a goodsense of humor.
(44:36):
Like whatever you do in deathcare, you have to laugh, because
I mean, the alternative is thatyou cry and you can't invest
that emotionally all the time.
Like I think the funniestpeople I know are death studies
scholars and death care workers.
Yeah, because nothing is offlimits, because why would it be
(44:56):
off limits when it's your dayjob?
And then everything is funny.
Like everything is funny.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
And it's look, it's a bit's look there are no taboos.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
you can talk about anything.
Yeah, it's a little bit of aliability when you're out, like
at a public restaurant or a baror a cafe, you're just trying to
talk about a fat fire or like agrave collapsing or like a
punch up at a funeral orwhatever it is.
Yeah, all of which you know arepart of the job, but having you
(45:28):
know, having some pragmatismand having a good sense of humor
, I think, are things that allowpeople to do this work, which
is really important actually.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Brilliant, that's great.
I mean, just as we sort of wrapup here what kind of final word
.
I mean it doesn't matter ifyou're baby boomer or you're Gen
X, millennial, gen Z?
What kind of final piece ofadvice would you give to people
about death or death care or theindustry, or just about?
(45:58):
Just a quick meaning of life,wrap up yeah, just wrap up with
a quick, just just sum it up forus in two sentences.
No, I'm just joking um I'm justcurious, you know, because it's
something we did look at on theabc show.
I mean, the the fun of thatdocumentary was kind of just.
I mean, if you had to sum it upinto a single phrase was be
(46:21):
prepared, but I wonder what yourthoughts are on it.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I think it's not be prepared is good, but I think it
is actually to not hold on tootightly to anything.
Right, like don't have a plan,have preferences, whatever it is
, but like being with death isfundamentally learning to be
(46:48):
with uncertainty.
Right, we don't know when it'sgoing to happen.
It might happen tomorrow, whoknows it's going to where?
When all these kind of things.
It's a practice in like justbeing okay with uncertainty, and
so preparation is great.
Talking to people is better.
Like having your own plans isgreat.
Talking to somebody about thoseplans is even better.
And then the final thing isjust find a way to make that
(47:12):
conversation fun.
So, like find an in you know,scattering your ashes at a
famous football ground orcricket ground, or if it's like
what would be the best playlistor best last meal, or whatever
(47:34):
it is.
Find an in to start thatconversation.
Because I think, as we'vediscussed, like the cocktail
party effect, the Uber driver ifyou do start the conversation
and stay, you study death.
Then often you can have areally great conversation.
Um, but you just kind of haveto be a little courageous to
start yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Speaking of which, what are your death plans?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
you must be well prepared um, I mean, they do
change quite frequently.
I have taken I mean I have akind of standing agreement with
Shane at Lidl Cemetery that ifhe is still working when I die
he will cremate me.
He's a lovely human being.
I think he'd be a good person.
(48:17):
I will probably.
I don't live near the body farmso I probably can't donate my
body to a body farm science.
But you know, take all my organstake everything that anyone can
use.
As I said, I'm a materialist.
I think that when I'm dead.
I'm not there, and if there'sanything useful, people can take
that and do good with it.
(48:37):
And yeah, cremate me, I don'tmind where I am, do something
fun.
I and yeah, cremate me, I don'tmind where I am, do something
fun.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
I did notice in the corner of your office.
There you've got what's that.
You can see the coffin In thecorner of your office.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
So, okay, this is the .
I know empty shelves, which isreally embarrassing for a
scholar, but there's a reasonthere's empty shelves.
And that is because this is mycoffin.
This is the coffin that I willbe probably cremated in.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Look, they're probably cremated in.
Look at that.
So hannah's getting in thecoffin.
Oh my god, do you?
Oh, it's cardboard.
So if you can't get in it,because you would, it would
knock over.
Yeah, I'll crush it.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
So it's a cardboard coffin and, um, I use it in
teaching, so my students, uh,decorate it every year.
Oh wow, they add stories andthey add kind of how they feel
about learning about death, andthey've added memorials to
people they know who have lovedto have died, and there's
religious texts from alldifferent religions.
And I started doing this awhile ago when I was teaching
(49:32):
death, and then I thought, well,it would be a shame to waste it
when I go, so it's just becomemy coffin.
This is the coffin I will beburied in, and I often think you
know, save you money.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Great, I love it.
It looks great.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, some nice drawings on there.
Yeah, it's great.
And then every year studentscan add more and eventually
it'll just be, you know, notsome small part of me, it'll be.
You know, all of my students Iever taught will be part of my
death, which I think is quitenice.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Brilliant, my coffin.
That's great.
You've got your coffin allready to go.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, always prepaid.
You know, no, I just some matesgave me that I didn't even pay
for it.
It's a free coffin.
I was like, wow, I'll take thatone.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Thanks, anna.
So before the end of thesechats I always like to ask if
anyone has anything to plug orany socials or anything to tell
people about pluggity time.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
The exciting thing that I have coming out is I have
finally written a popular bookabout death and dying and it is
out next year, so you'll have towait a little bit.
But it's out in 2026 withJameson Hudson and it is called
how to Die in the 21st CenturyLessons in Mortality.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
What's it about?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
It's about six lessons in how to die and how
death and dying has changed inthe 21st century and therefore,
like, what does that mean forwhen we, you know, do a funeral
or cremate someone, and whatdoes that mean for grief and how
to approach that?
So it's kind of a how-to guidefor death but for life.
Yeah, you know, know, upliftingoh yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
All right, well, um once we have more information
about that, um I'll post it onsocials and put in the link and
all sorts of stuff, and you letus know um fantastic.
Do you have social media or doyou got a website?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
I always like yes.
So, um, if people would like tofollow up with me and follow
what I'm doing and publicationsand future books and, I don't
know, podcasts, musical theatreone day, who knows?
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Media appearances.
You do a few of those every nowand then.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Media appearances, lots of TV.
They can just go tohannahgouldcom.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
That's me.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I exited all other social media because I kept
reminding myself that I wasgoing to die, and so I thought I
should stop wasting time on it.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
It's probably very healthy.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, just remember, you're going to die everyone.
It's fine, you'll be fine, it'sfine.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Nothing you do about it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
We're all going to die Live with it.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Yeah, just live with the fact that you're going to
die.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, fact that you're going to die.
Yeah see, sounds easy, prettytough, we'll get there bro
hannah gould, thank you so muchfor taking the time.
Lovely to speak with you.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Thank you for having me so lovely to speak to you.
All right, we'll catch you soon.
And that is it for this week'sepisode.
Um, I want to say a massivethank you to Hannah for taking
the time to share herexperiences with us and a huge
thanks to you all as well forlistening.
For photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
(52:34):
to noordinarymondaycom and lookfor the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via Linktree.
Our handle is NoOrdinaryMonday.
If you have questions or want toshare your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials.
You can also email helloH-E-L-L-O at NoOrdinaryMondaycom
(53:00):
or you can use the submit youryour Story page on our website.
And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick
things for us Give us afive-star rating and review and
tell a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
guests and inspire new listeners.
The next episode will be abrilliant two-parter.
(53:24):
I speak to Tony Bonner, aformer trauma nurse who was one
of the first at the scene at theinfamous Lockerbie bombing in
1988.
It's a really fascinating andactually really well told story,
so you don't want to miss it.
So please subscribe and be thefirst to get new episodes.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
(53:47):
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
everyone.
Hello and welcome to another episode of no Ordinary
Monday.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I am your host, chris Barron,and each week I sit down with a
guest whose job is far fromordinary.
We explore how they got thereand what it's really like behind
the scenes, and then they'lldeep dive into the single most
(00:26):
unforgettable experience oftheir career.
Today, I've got someone a bitdifferent for you.
My guest is someone whose jobcenters around an interesting
and often taboo subject.
Dr Hannah Gould is ananthropologist who studies death
and dying.
Hannah Gould is ananthropologist who studies death
(00:46):
and dying.
Everything from the ritualsthat we perform to the realities
of the death care industry andits workers, which you can
imagine, takes her to some darkbut pretty fascinating places
that few of us get to see.
In Hannah's big story, sherelives the time that she
attended a massive death careconference in Japan and ended up
being on stage as ademonstration corpse, which is a
(01:09):
very funny story.
So stick around for that.
I'm going to give a quicktrigger warning here for this
episode.
While the conversation we haveis mostly fun and insightful, we
do, of course, touch on sometopics around death which may be
difficult or confronting forsome listeners, so please do use
discretion.
With all that said, I amincredibly excited to bring you
(01:33):
guys this conversation withHannah.
You are listening to noOrdinary Monday.
Let's get into the show.
All right, hannah Gould,welcome to the podcast.
How are you doing today?
Hi, I'm doing well.
(01:57):
Cold, yeah, chilly.
Brisbane Sorry Melbourne, sorry, not Brisbane.
No no, no, we don't do Brisbane,we're called Melbourne.
Yeah, so it's actually, I don'tknow, maybe a couple of years
since we last saw each otherface-to-face when we were
working on a documentary aboutdeath for the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Up in Sydney a documentary about death.
One of the weirder emails andphone calls I've ever received.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
And that's coming from a death researcher.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And from a death researcher.
So you know, my inbox is justfilled with some absolute pals
members of the public, varioustech people, doctors et cetera,
just asking me for my hot takesabout cremation et cetera.
But yeah, no, you stood out.
Nice, Very fun experience, butalso again, one of the oddest
(02:49):
experiences of uh, filming thatand then trying to smuggle a
small corpse model throughdomestic airport in sydney so
basically yeah, some contextrequired for that anecdote, yeah
so we were, yeah, so we weremaking a documentary for the abc
about, uh, you know, death anddying.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And uh, we had this great host, matt, who's a
comedian, and um, I think wewere kind of like, oh, how do we
sort of make this interestingfor people and show all the
different ways that you can,like, get?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
prepared or treated after you die?
How do you get rid of a body?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
yeah.
And then so, um, obviously I,you know, found you and your
work and I thought, oh, hannah,be great for this.
And I email you say, hey, anna,do you want to come and bury a
tiny model of matt okine in?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
seven or eight different ways we can like.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Literally, we're going to flame him with, like a
little torch.
We're going to bury him at sea.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
We're going to flame him with like a little torch.
We're going to bury him at sea,we're going to.
Well, I still have one fromthat, from that recording?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, I noticed he's on this in the shelf behind you.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Try to place my office.
But one of the things was I didhave to kind of you know, I
only took hand language, so Ihad to take him back through my
hand language in Sydney airport.
And what I didn't realize atthe time, which I must have knew
, is that it has like a wireframe through the middle of the
paper machine yeah.
So it goes through the scannerand it comes up with this tiny
(04:14):
little and he's in a coffin,right.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I get stopped.
I don't know if I ever told youthis.
I got stopped and my bags gotopened.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I don't think you told me no.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I got my bags got opened.
I don't think you told me no, Igot my bags got opened and they
were like I mean they didn'tlike outright say why do you
have a small, you know voodoodoll in your bag?
Of a famous Australian comedian, but I think it was implied and
I just kind of had to look atthem and be like I have an
interesting job.
I'm sorry, what do you wantfrom me here?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Like is this illegal?
Did you?
Did you tell them, like, whatyou're at that point?
Did you have to explain like Iam a death researcher?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
or I just kind of said I've just.
I just kind of said oh, I'vebeen up here filming some tv and
this is one of the props.
Is there anything like itdoesn't?
I think I said it doesn'tcontain liquid it hasn't got
organs.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's like did.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think it's like I don't know.
I mean, I imagine that that islike one of those jobs where you
just find the absolute weirdeststuff in people's bags and you
just have to really yeah, stoneface ignore it, because people
can carry whatever they cancarry, but um yeah, I think
certainly like the miniminiature coffin that matt
signed for me.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Certainly didn't necessarily help with the yeah,
um yeah, great experienceobviously like, yeah, it was
super fun, but, um, I mean, Iguess, with all that said, what,
what would you say is the mostinteresting way to explain what
you do for a living?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
wow, I mean, in some ways, um, my job is very boring
in the sense that it's a verynormal job, I think I I work and
I teach at a university.
Um, I suppose the odd thingabout my job is that I do that
researching two verynon-controversial topics, which
is religion and death.
Um, yeah, and specifically, Ifocus a lot on dead bodies and
(06:05):
what to do with them and how wetreat them and like how our
religious responses to them havechanged.
So my job, basically, is to tryand understand, like, what is
going on with death and dying inAustralia and also I do work in
Northeast Asia and Japan andKorea and then to try and use
(06:25):
those findings to create somekind of meaningful change.
Right, so, educating studentsabout policy, policy change kind
of thing yeah, well, first ofall like educating students to
be more comfortable with deathand talk about death, um,
particularly medical students.
I teach a lot of medicalstudents about how to say the D
word and then also policy change.
(06:47):
So things like big questionslike should we be allowed to
bury our pets with us incemeteries, or how much does
death cost, how much shoulddeath cost?
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Who should pay for a funeral, which is a big question
, massive question, biggerquestion, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Which you know all really normal, except then you
add the element of staring intothe existential void that is our
mortality every day.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I think I can just imagine it like using the
cocktail party test, like you'resort of milling around and
someone comes up to you and saysoh hey, what did you do?
You're like oh, I'm an academic, I'm anthropologist and they
start to glaze over.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
And then you're like I about death and they're like
oh, okay, yeah, I have lied toadmitting an uber driver I've
got to say, which I actuallythink is a really good test of
if your job is weird, is like,do you?
Like an uber driver because Iif you were tired and you're
just trying to get in a carsomewhere and they ask you what
you do and you're like lookingat them and you think I don't
(07:53):
know if I really was like whyare you here?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
oh?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I'm here for the annual cemeteries convention
yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
So what is it like?
Clearly, people's reactions aretheir eyes go a little bit wide
and go oh, that's weird.
But what is it?
What is it about?
Death that, I don't know,fascinates people, or like.
What I find interesting is likethere's a weird way that we
treat death in some ways thatwe're so obsessed with it, with
like true crime, so much like inlike media, for example, like
(08:24):
tvs, movie shows, the movies.
So much true crime, death,afterlife, paranormal, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
But when it comes to real life,it's like no, don't talk about
it yeah, this is the great kindof contradiction.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So I mean the kind of the theory that we've rejected
now is that death is taboo orlike that.
No one ever wants to talk aboutdeath or think about death.
And exactly what you're sayingis like well, no, because people
bloody love true crime podcasts.
I'm in melbourne, everyone'sbeen following the mushroom
murderer.
That's been all the news.
That's all that all we've gotyou know, and and also, like you
(08:57):
know, video games.
It seems like the more gruesomethe death, the better, right,
like people are really attractedto this kind of extraordinary
deaths, right, and they're notso interested in thinking about
death in the kind of normal,banal, aka the kinds of deaths
that they imagine could happento them.
Right, and I think that'salways made a lot more sense to
(09:20):
me.
It's that it remains taboo, butthe nature of taboo is that
humans, like humans, desperatelylove to break taboos.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
We're just not necessarily so comfortable doing
it in public.
I mean, I think the thing thatis he mentioned earlier that you
do a lot of work with, likemedical students, doctors,
people in the medical field,like those are arguably some of
the people that are closest tothe conversation, because every
day they may see people die,they may actually be the people
that are trying to prevent deathand all that sort of stuff, and
they're some of the people thathave the hardest time talking
(09:51):
like I'm just I was so surprisedthat like people in that field
aren't so, um, well conversed inlike talking about death and
like facing death and dealingwith death and knowing what to
do, so like, like, just tell melike what, what have you
experienced when you're workingwith them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So we've only been teaching like death and dying
101 at Melbourne uni since likea couple of years now.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
And before that there was nothing.
It was just like you are adoctor, you go and save lives.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
This is an elective subject and really they don't
even in their core, they don'teven really get you know.
There's like how to deliver badnews.
I suppose Some training.
It's not you know, in thefundamental curriculum, but it's
just kind of other things.
Like, you know, cremationversus burial, or what should
(10:41):
you do to the body, how do youhandle a body at the point of
death or dying so that it, youknow, gets to the family in the
best condition, for example,like super practical?
Or like you know, should yousay the d word?
Like what does the researchactually say about how to talk
to people about death and dyingand what families want and what
patients want?
(11:02):
And that kind of thing is prettyshocking in the sense that it's
not being educated to doctorsand I think it's kind of sad,
not only because people don'thave the language or they don't
have to deal with it.
But what I always think isextraordinary is, like you know,
the students we get in deathand dying and the medical
subject.
We get them like 12 weeks intotheir medical degree.
(11:23):
They've only you know, they'veonly just started medical
subject.
We get them like 12 weeks intotheir medical degree.
They've only, you know, they'veonly just started, yeah, and
already 12 weeks in, they areincredibly scared but also
guilty, like they genuinelythink that if somebody dies it's
their fault and they've failedright murder yeah, this idea of
failure is like the goal ofmedicine is to save people and
(11:44):
if somebody dies, then I havenot done medicine well.
Like death is death is.
The goal of medicine is to savepeople and if somebody dies,
then I have not done medicinewell like death is, death is the
literal anti, is the enemy,like we're constantly fighting
him off.
Yet it's not this fault forthese like young trainee doctors
, because, like that is how themedical system has been, apart
from, like some fields likepalliative medicine, who are
obviously brilliant on this.
That is how the majority andyou know it slipped into our
(12:06):
everyday language.
You know, you think aboutcancer like it's a battle, it's
a fight, you know all these kindof things.
And so obviously, if somebodydies, they lose their battle
with cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
No one ever just dies Like you have to lose a battle
with cancer, which I think isterrible terminology.
So we kind of have to do a lotof work.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Have you got a better way of phrasing it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
They had cancer and then they died.
Well, they died from cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It just doesn't have to be a war.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be a war.
I mean, we talk about that.
We talk about like should youuse the D word, and you know you
don't always have to use it butthere's so many numerous
examples, like pretty horrificexamples of a lack of
communication or a failure ofcommunication and families not
clocking on to the fact thattheir loved one's going say
things like we're going to stopmedical interventions or we're
(13:07):
recommending palliation, orwe're moving you to comfort care
.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
They'll never actually say you will die.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Like.
We suspect that you will diewithin the next however many
months.
So we're not sure when you'regoing to die, but we suspect
that this you know.
We're pretty sure this illnesswill kill you.
You will die.
We don't think there's anythingwe can do to prevent that have
you ever thought about?
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I mean, you've ever sort of yourself, yeah, keep it
a bit nicer, but like if youwere in that position yeah like
getting that news.
Would you not want them tosugarcoat it, or at least
sugarcoat it for your family, orwould you?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
be like I've been in that position.
Just say like it is.
I've been in that positionthough, like I've seen.
So my dad died.
One of the reasons I got intothis whole work is like my dad
died 2013, like 13 years ago.
12 years ago, I was super young,I was 22, 23, um.
I thought I was very mature andtotally able to deal with that
(14:05):
knowledge.
When it happened, um, you know,and I was like he was in
hospice and I was in hospicewith him and he had not accepted
the fact that he was dying andwas kept asking about, like,
potential treatments, that sortof stuff.
And I saw the doctor come inand kind of just entertain his
idea that there might bepossible treatments like that,
(14:29):
and I was like this isridiculous, like and I think
part of it is that, you know, Iwonder if it's that doctors are
really worried about destroyinghope, right, that they think
hope is so important, right?
We can't let people give up orhave an existential crisis, to
which I can only reply like it'sdeath.
Of course you're going to havean existential crisis.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That's kind of the point you're not supposed to be
okay with it, but it doesn'tmean you can't deal with it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, and I think it's exactly right, a hundred
percent of those things.
You're like you don't have tobe okay with it, like you don't,
it's not something.
And that getting out of thatmindset for students like you
know this is not something youcan solve, it's not something.
And getting out of that mindsetfor students like you know this
is not something you can solve,right, it's not a problem for
you to solve.
And so I try and get them tothink about, instead of like
their goal being life-saving is,I say to them you know every
(15:17):
single patient that you see,whether you're a podiatrist or
pediatrics or chiropractic, youknow not just the medical
profession, any kind of health,every single person.
Your job is either to help themdie later or die better.
Yeah, but they're both going to, they're all going to die.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
No one's going to live forever.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
No one has ever made it out of here alive yeah, we're
all you know.
So you're not saving them fromdeath.
You're either delaying it ormaking it better, and hopefully
both like have you?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
have you had any feedback from those students
about that course?
Have they gone?
All you know it's completelychanged the way I've thought
about it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Or the first time that a patient did die on me,
you know I would thought back towhat you're saying, blah, blah
that I've had medical studentsactually who have come into the
program being like I'm reallyterrified of death and I don't
want this to be part of my job.
And thankfully, luckily,through talking about it and
exposing and removing some ofthat fear, they're now far more
(16:19):
comfortable.
I think in the conversationsthey're having and hopefully
also when they then go to thehospital and see a death you
know, declaration verificationthey feel more comfortable,
right, and they can be betterfor the family and for their
colleagues as well.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned your father's passing
or say the father died.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, he died, it's fine.
It's so natural for me to evensay to someone who's experienced
that he lost.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I was like he's not, like he's not behind the couch,
like we know where he is he losthim, yeah, yeah when he died um
, so yeah, your father died,your dad died and um, but I like
I mean on the podcast, I loveto sort of understand people's
origin stories, so that'sobviously your origin story into
the death industry.
But but even before that, whatdid you want to be as a kid?
(17:13):
Do you?
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
well, when I was, uh, six, uh, when I was six, chris,
I wanted to be either aballerina or a fairy, as my mom
likes to remind me.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
When did those dreams get crushed?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The two viable career choices.
That I no.
I mean.
I was reflecting on this theother day, I think I was always
a very precocious, very studiousyoung child and I distinctly
remember the first time I metsomebody who was like a young
woman who had a doctorate, whowas studying for her PhD, and I
thought thought oh my god, likeI could do that, like I would.
(17:48):
I want to get a PhD.
That's the thing I want to do.
I want to work at a universityand I was at Oxford for my
master's and I was studyingreligion.
So I've always been reallyinterested in different
religious, cultural beliefs andspecifically I mean in this kind
of the fundamental question ofdeath, which is like how does,
(18:09):
how does matter relate tospirits?
It's kind of an odd way ofputting it, but you know, um, a
cross, a crucifix is just acrucifix.
How does it become holy?
Right, like?
An altar is just an altar.
It's a piece of wood.
Sometimes they're mass-producedpieces of wood, they're carved
Like how does that feel?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But we imbue them with power.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, how do we imbue them with power?
Like, how do we imagine wheredoes the power come from?
When does a thing become holy,when does it become more than
just stuff, which ironically iskind of the opposite of the body
, right, like this is a thingthat was human and at some point
it stops maybe being human andis now a thing like it was a
(18:50):
subject and now is an objectyeah, and so there's a process
by which the kind of in, youknow, this kind of spirit, you
know, leaves the body at somepoint, and I, I say spirit not
in a particularly religious way,but like in any kind of this
recognition that this is morethan just stuff.
And like what is the process bywhich this thing, which is more
(19:13):
than stuff, eventually does justbecome stuff, or does it ever
become stuff which, like, is nota?
You know?
I think I got my PhD some timeago.
I'm not going to answer thisone.
Yeah.
I suspect it may be afundamental question of the
human condition, as opposed toan easy topic.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I started studying like religion and Buddhism and
Buddhist materiality, and itjust kind of so happened or,
weirdly enough, the kind of theBuddhist altars that I was
focusing on are also wherepeople make offerings to the
ancestors, and so I became moreand more engaged in ancestor
worship, veneration, death.
And then my dad died and bigquestion right Like, what on
(19:55):
earth is going on?
I remember this distinct momentof funeral planning for him,
where there was I don't know ifyou've ever arranged a funeral.
Have you ever arranged afuneral, chris?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I haven't.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
No, I mean touch with them being lucky not to most
people like probably, if they'relucky, will only do one or two
in their lives, right?
Most people who are privilegedenough to you know outlive their
children to you know, if you'relucky, you'll probably one or
two, which is great.
But I remember this distinctmoment they bring all these like
(20:29):
glossy books to your house.
They did in the day.
I'm sure it's on iPads now.
But they're like catalogues ofcoffins and they all have these
absolutely naff, terrible namesthat are like Mahogany's Kiss or
rosewood and jewel, you knowlike worse than paint colors,
(20:50):
kind of terrible made up namesfor these brands.
And I just had this like momentof sitting there and trying to
like pick a coffin, thinkinglike who on earth designed this?
Like, why is this the stuffthat we've decided is the stuff
that we want for the dead?
Yeah, and also, you know, beingsomeone who's quite a
materialist, like in the senseof like quite an atheist, you
(21:11):
know I was like I'm just dead,it doesn't matter what box he's
in, like why am I, why am Ishelling out tens of thousands
of dollars for mahogany's kissor whatever the coffin is?
um, yeah and so I think thatjust like reaffirmed this idea
that, no, this is the thing Ishould do, this is the thing I
should study, which is is deathand dying in australia and and
(21:31):
kind of that relationshipbetween stuff and and spirit um,
cool, so you mentioned um,you've done a lot of work in
australia.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You've done a lot of work in, obviously, like asia
you know korea, japan as well,and you know just observing how
different people, differentcountries, different cultures
deal with death and the ritualsaround death.
I'm just really curious, likewhat are some of the most
unsettling or horrifying orbeautiful things that you've
(22:02):
seen when you, when you'relooking at all it could be in
Australia or anywhere else.
Have you worked?
I think one of it could be inAustralia or anywhere else that
you've worked.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I think one of the weirdest things about working in
death is that it's bothhorrifying and beautiful at the
same time.
A lot of the time and that'slike it almost it always struck
me as almost like too muchinformation was going into my
brain, like a real challenge toprocess and understand what had
just happened.
I mean, obviously I have thisjob, which is similar to your
(22:30):
job in many ways that you know,I go into these worlds, I go
into these workplaces for a fewweeks or a few months and I, you
know, I learn how to cremate abody and I learn how to bury
somebody, or maybe not similarto what you do every day.
You know, I get to experiencethese insights into people's
world and I have to rememberthat, like all those people are,
that is their day to day, thatis their nine to five.
(22:51):
Right, and like I don't thinkwe often think about like
someone's nine to five beingcremating a body, but that is
somebody's, that's a lot ofpeople's nine to five is go to
work, cremate 10 12 people.
Go home.
Go to work cremate 10 12 people.
Go home.
Go to the footy on the weekend,go to the pub.
You know, tell really bawdyjokes to deal with the emotional
(23:12):
stress of having to, and theydo these people, like they do,
experience stress?
I guess, yeah, I, it's reallyfunny because I'm always kind of
almost hesitant to sharestories, because I think I'm
trying to be, I try and be verycareful about what I share and I
try and, um, I will tell you astory that's quite confronting.
But, um, one of the hardestthings working at the creme is
(23:38):
like, I think, you know, not forme, like going in there for a
few days, but for the people whoactually work there nine to
five is obviously children andchild death and having to
cremate children remainsPartially because so little of a
child makes it through thecrematorium right that it
(24:01):
produces such little material.
And you know, thinking aboutdeath and the sacred like, if
there is one thing that issacred across societies, it is
children, and so children dyingis such a tragedy in every
circumstance.
And so people working in thecrematorium you'd think, oh,
they must be immune to this bynow.
(24:22):
This is their day-to-day.
But the same time, like whenthere is a kid that comes
through that is the same age assomeone's child, you know, child
who works there, that's areally tough day for everyone at
the cram.
I mean, look, I always struggleto share it because I don't
know how much people want toknow.
But you know there's a realexperience of, of just talking
(24:45):
to this guy who went to the cramand we're just having this
casual conversation, and whilewe were having that casual
conversation he was crushing thebones of an infant with the
back of a teaspoon.
Because that was the likeusually cremation you, you put
the remains through a wholemachine which is like a, a
(25:07):
cramulator, and it produces thisfine ash and, like you know,
usually for most human remainsthere's a lot of ash.
But when it's a child, like thecremation staff do all the best
that they can to make sure thatall of the potential, like you
know, every little tiny bit,because there's so little gets
to the, the family or parents,and so the best way to do it is
to do it manually.
So little gets to the family orthe parents, and so the best
(25:27):
way to do it is to do itmanually.
Right, and I just think it wassuch an odd I mean, of all the
uses of the term, surreal, thatis probably the one that really,
you know, I'm just chatting tohim about work and life and that
and he's doing this kind ofincredibly traumatic, meaningful
I think, I almost think aboutit as just like superlative.
(25:51):
It is everything too much inthat experience?
Right, like everything too muchis happening and then, like he
does, like maybe three or fourof those a day and then goes
back to his family and hasdinner and goes to the
Cremations or.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Children like crashing, you know so yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I mean depending on the crematorium and the capacity
and you know all these otherquestions, and I think it kind
of one of the things that's likeso hard to talk about those
experiences, I think, becausethey affect a lot of people and
obviously you know, if peopleyou know have kids, imagining
that's so horrific.
But I also think that it's soincredibly sad that we don't
(26:39):
imagine that more, in the sensethat we never think about the
people whose job that is.
We desperately want them to doa good job, we want them to be
good people and we want them todo their job well because we
need them to.
But we don't pay them very welland you know, when they say
(27:01):
they work at a crematorium, wemaybe treat them with a bit of
stigma or taboo and we think, oh, you must be so how could you
possibly do that job?
But somebody needs to do it andwe really want them to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
well, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
And so it's this kind of this.
You know, as horrible as thatnot horrible, but as intense as
that experience is, it's like mygosh, you know, know, you
really hope that on your worstday there's someone who is
willing to do that, yeah, and iswilling to do that work they're
good at their job and they takethey take pride in their job
(27:35):
and blah they don't do it yeah,and if it means that they have
to tell some like bawdy jokes toget through the day, like I am
all for good for them.
Do whatever they need to do,because that is not.
You know, I was only there fora couple of weeks, but like that
is not something that I coulddo.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
So, um, on the show, we like people to come on and
share sort of the I guess, thecraziest experience of their
career.
Sometimes that's a single day,sometimes an event.
Um, obviously you've done andseen a lot in your time.
I'm wondering if you can sharesome a story or stories from,
(28:13):
from your experiences um.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So one of the oddest experiences is and I think this
is probably drives home hownormal but also odd this whole
sector is is like there's lotsof really big funerals,
cemeteries, crematorium,industry conventions around the
world.
Famously, the American one isoften in Vegas, which is super
(28:35):
fun to you know.
Go to Vegas and look at rowsand rows of the latest and
greatest new inventions incoffins Wow.
But the one that I often go tois in Tokyokyo, japan, and that
again is like in a bigconvention center.
You wake up in the morning, geta coffee, go to the convenience
store, you're there, you'reready and you go into this
convention center and it's justlike several football fields
(28:58):
worth of death, tech, death,merch, death, stuff.
Like it's a trade show, rightyeah yeah, and it any.
Every industry has a trade show,and the death care sector has a
trade show, and so you know myday this is a few years ago,
(29:18):
this industry convention calledindex, and my day kind of began
with witnessing a roboticBuddhist priest recite sutras
for the dead.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Moved on to Did it look like a robot or?
Speaker 1 (29:37):
did it look like an android kind of-.
Oh, it's a robot.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's called Pepper.
It's a robot created bySoftBank and it was designed
well.
It was used in this casebecause they don't have enough
Buddhist priests to recitesutras for the aging population,
oh my God.
So I started there, which is atotally very weird start to your
morning, and then I walked over.
I mean, this is all in a singleday.
(30:00):
I walked over to where someonewas giving out free samples of
coffee, but the coffee beanswere being ground with a
recycled gravestone, so it waslike two big pieces of marble
that they had created like amillstone of delicious coffee.
So you've kind of been freakedout by the Buddhist robot.
(30:23):
Then you get your coffee.
So you've kind of been freakedout by the Buddhist robot.
Then you get your coffee.
You walk over to the people whoare selling mobile pet
crematoriums, where they'lldrive around the countryside
with a van that has a furnaceand cremate your pet on the spot
for you Sure my God, transitionto the kind of fashion
(30:49):
designers for funeral dress andend up, in my case, at this
school that offers um, likeritual dressing, mortuary
dressing for the dead.
In japan, people might befamiliar.
There's quite a famous oscaraward-winning film called
Departures Okuribito in Japanese, which is about this quite
traditional practice in a smallpart of Japan of like washing
(31:12):
and dressing the dead in frontof the family.
So the mortician would come intothe home, the dead is laid out
in the kind of living room andthey would basically, you know,
clean, wash, dress, then changethe clothes, switch the clothes,
put the makeup on for the dead,and this is all like performed
in front of the family and it'sdone this extremely ritualized,
careful manner so that, like, nopart of bare skin is ever
(31:38):
visible to the family and it'sall incredibly respectful and
it's done like in a veryritualized, beautiful fashion.
Um, they're having so you walkup to this, you know Okuribidō
Academy who are who are teachingyoung people this, this skill
about how to dress the dead, andthey're having like a.
(31:58):
They're having this competitionfor funeral professionals and
there's three categories Hottestmonk Important Ikeman, yeah,
but like hot in the sense oflike the full package, so also
can give you know greatest, givea great sermon but also looks
(32:19):
good.
Hottest monk Miss funeralattendant also can give you know
greatest great give a greatsermon but also looks good you
know hottest monk, miss funeralattendant.
Like miss universe, but likemiss funeral attendant, yeah
yeah, and then, um, they werehaving like a, a corpse dressing
competition.
That was for, like, who candress the body the quickest,
(32:41):
most most professional, mostbeautiful?
Yeah, you know on a live stagewith live music pumped in the
background oh my God With likecommentators, and you know
immediately yes, I will be ademonstration corpse.
This is what my life has beenleading up.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
To Hand went straight up, hand straight up.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And like it should be said also, I'm the only white
person there, I'm the onlyforeigner there, I speak
Japanese, you know, you can getaround, like, so you know, this
is mostly.
It's not even for media.
It's like this is an internalspace, this is by the funeral
sector for the funeral sector,right, and this is for people
who, which I think, are alwaysinteresting spaces to be in, but
(33:20):
I was, which I think, arealways interesting spaces to be.
I was like I will, I will dothis, this is what I want to do
in life.
And it was just entirely, again, the world's surreal is not a
great word, but like it was justa, in some ways, an out-of-body
experience, because, so youknow, so wait, so it was like
three, like more.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Were you the only one ?
Or there was?
You were like, you were just ademonstration corp and multiple
people were like competing tolike dress you for funeral.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Oh, no, there was multiple people, multiple
demonstration corpses.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Okay On the event on this occasion.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I mean, I've done this a few times at this
convention.
I think they must think I'm abit obsessed now.
But the first time it happenedit was just like you walked up
to this, like stand at aconvention center and there's
like tatami mats out and there'slike a pile of white kimono you
buried in white in japantraditionally.
Um, I was like white kimono outand they kind of say we're
(34:08):
gonna have a demonstration.
Is there a volunteer from thecrowd?
Immediately, yes, yes, this iswhat I want to do.
Um, this is after the robotpriest and the milk ground
coffee.
And I'm like I'm already there.
I'm like sign me up, now is mytime.
And so I was like okay.
And I said well, wait, what doyou need me to do?
(34:31):
I'm just like wearing, like youknow, suit, whatever.
I was like what do you meandoing is just like we'll just
pretend to be dead and lie down.
And I was like okay, butimmediately.
I mean I immediately screwed itup because like the first thing
that happens is you're lyingthere and he comes and the
person who's doing the dressingcomes and bows over the corpse.
But I am so ingrained, havinglived in japan at that point for
(34:54):
multiple months that I like bow, as I'm like there as the
corpse, you know, like, likethis, like you know, thank you
for your stop moving, you'redead.
So I failed immediately.
But after that it was just likereally odd.
They obviously didn't undressme, they were just putting on
the clothing that they wouldusually put on in that case, but
(35:16):
it was.
It kind of felt like a reallyrough massage that had
absolutely no care about what itmust feel like because, as it
struck me this person's notreally thinking how the dead
will appreciate it or not.
(35:39):
This is a visual performance forthe people sitting in front, so
it's just kind of like peopleshoving a lot of fabric
underneath you very quickly andlike trying to wrap you in the
right materials and like it waskind of a monty python comedy of
errors.
Like my feet were too big forlike whatever the japanese size,
like feet coverings they hadand like.
(36:02):
And were they laughing or werethey kind of getting a?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
little bit stressed because this is a like, whatever
the Japanese size, like feetcoverings they had and like.
And were they laughing or werethey kind of getting a little
bit stressed?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Because this is a competition right, no hyper
serious hyper serious, oh.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Really.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Nothing can unflappable.
Unflappable Because that'stheir whole job is to be
unflappable I mean funeralattendants, funeral directors,
anyone who runs a funeral, Imean get them to organize
anything in your life becausethey've got skills.
But also completely unflappablebecause, like it is their job
to appear calm, collected, likeeverything's perfect, even if
(36:32):
it's all falling apart, whichoften is, because that's the
other thing.
Funerals often go wrong.
They're just events that thingsoften go wrong.
So this is all kind of like abit of a common areas and I
can't see anything.
I just really want to seesomething, trying to open my
eyes as a dead person and I mean, it's fine in the end, but it's
just I.
That is one of many ways inwhich I just became dressed as a
(36:54):
corpse and oh my god, but wait,did you, did you, did you win?
uh, my guy was like the.
Yeah, he was like the head,he's like the head.
I went to the top for my firstcorpse dressing experience, wow.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
But have subsequently .
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So you were like yeah , I got the gold treatment.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
You were a good corpse.
You were a very good corpse.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I was a very good corpse.
It's a skill that you don'treally think about and then you
end up at some point in yourlife thinking it's like a real
record scratch moment in my life.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So one of the things that we actually covered on the
documentary when we workedtogether on that one- um or you
were part of, but it's.
It's this idea of peak death,you know oh, yeah, and it's
something that I have beenfollowing kind of separately,
just the fact that population isin decline yeah which
essentially means in the comingyears we're going to have a lot
(37:50):
more dead people than peoplebeing born, but essentially just
the population of aging peopleand people dying will increase.
Um, I, there's several things Iwant to go into on this.
Obviously, like you know,there's careers in the death
industry and that market and allthat stuff.
But like, just talk us through,like that sort of concept,
(38:13):
what's happening, right?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
now.
Yeah, I mean, look, if you'relooking for a career path that
AI will not disrupt handlingdead bodies Can I introduce that
?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Except if it's robots into priests.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, god damn it.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
The robots will win again.
So, yeah, peak death is alittle bit of an amorphous
concept.
It's not very well studied yetand it's something I'm actually
hoping to do a big project on ina couple of years, but it is
something that we've noted alittle bit more in aged care.
But peak death is basically aphenomenon where more people die
than ever before as a result ofour demographics, and they are
(38:56):
demographics of ageingpopulations and particularly
demographics of populations thatexperienced a post-World War II
baby boom and then subsequentlythe baby boomers have not had
as many kids as their generation, as it were.
So we've got this kind of bulgein our demographics, and I
(39:17):
think the youngest baby boomeris just past 65 this year, which
is what Australia classifies asan older person.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
I always find this quite awkward to talk about
because I'm a millennial andthere's something particularly.
Yeah.
So when I stand up in front ofa room of people, particularly
when I'm asking for funding, andsay the baby rumors will die,
like you know, bless her, herheart.
My professor here.
She's like well, you can't saythat.
I'm like what do you mean?
I can't say that she's likewell, but I don't want to hear
(39:47):
it.
I'm like well, but millennialswill die.
I'm fine saying that there's no, it's not an offense.
This is not an accusation yeahyou.
You're older australians.
You're gonna die soon.
This is fine like this is whathappens to everyone.
But the question is not so muchlike there's a two-part
question.
One is like does our death caresystem, does our death care
(40:08):
system, as it currently stands,have enough capacity to handle
what's going to happen?
Do we have enough crematorium?
Do we have enough graves?
Do we have enough professionalswho work in the sector, whether
that be a grief counsellor or aprobate lawyer or I don't know?
a crematorium officer, whateverit is you know, is this are we
(40:28):
going to be able to handle this?
And you know, add to that thespicy, fun, exciting perspective
of a pandemic.
Throw that in somewhere, youknow there, that could also put
pressure.
And then I think the second onethat's also kind of interesting
is what is it about thatgeneration that might change our
relationship with death, bothin how they approach death and
(40:51):
how they choose to die, but thenalso like how their children
choose to bury and cremate andcommemorate them?
So not to say that there's bothlike challenges and
opportunities, but there's likea concern about capacity in my
mind.
But then there's also like alot of interesting questions
about like well then, what willthis look like?
(41:12):
Because I don't, we haven'treally hit there yet Like it's
coming.
I'm deeply, I've always wantedto write a book that's just
called boomers death to boomers,but no one will let me that's
gonna be a tough one to getpublished.
Clickbait title and then a verycompassionate and considered
(41:33):
book which is just about yeahyeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I mean I said like in today's world, especially for
like X Gen Z, the job marketdoesn't look as strong as it may
have been in our generation.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Putting, it mildly yeah, things are not getting
right for my young students whoare thinking how to make a
living.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
The death care industry is a strong place to
look.
I mean, if people wereinterested.
I mean there's a lot of workthat is going to a lot of demand
for work in that sector.
But, what you've worked with alot of these people.
What does it sort of depend?
I mean, there's a huge spectrumof roles you can take in the
death care industry, but I meangenerally, what does it take to
(42:18):
be someone that sort of workswith death every day?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
to be someone that sort of works with death every
day.
Yeah, it's an interestingquestion because, you know,
someone who creates bodies everyday can be a rather different
skill set to somebody who issitting down with families to
arrange a funeral.
Yeah, so you know, there's awhole group of people who say
their job is horticulture andtheir job is to, you know, look
(42:47):
after cemeteries and do thelawns and do the botanical
gardens and maybe dig a grave sothat's an area that you could
get, but, um, what does it taketo deal with death every day?
I think one of the interestingthings is that I think we would
go back to talking about, like,death taboos and death anxiety.
(43:09):
What I find really interestingis that there's two groups of
people that we tend to thinkthat more religious people might
have less death anxiety, right,like, oh, you've got an idea of
the afterlife, therefore,you're not going to be scared of
death.
What the research, research hasfound and this is ongoing is
that actually, if you havestrong religious belief or if
(43:30):
you have strong atheistconvictions, then you're less
afraid of death, and it's thegreat kind of uncertainty that
is what tends to make peoplemore anxious about death, right,
so it's almost like an invertedu in terms of, um, death
anxiety, and I think you don'tneed to have all the answers or
(43:52):
have, like you know, a total,you know idea of what's going to
happen to you after you die.
You know it's a thing to enterinto death and to work in death,
but you need either some kindof belief or some kind of deep
pragmatism.
I think that's really important, like you need to kind of be
okay with going to work in an ina, in a field that can very
(44:15):
emotionally taxing anddistressing.
And also, like go home and goto the footy, like have
something that grounds you, thatis part of your life, that's
good and wholesome, and it'syour dog and it's running a
marathon and it's knitting, it'swhatever it is.
And then I think you, I meanit's like a requirement, which
is that you must have a goodsense of humor.
(44:36):
Like whatever you do in deathcare, you have to laugh, because
I mean, the alternative is thatyou cry and you can't invest
that emotionally all the time.
Like I think the funniestpeople I know are death studies
scholars and death care workers.
Yeah, because nothing is offlimits, because why would it be
(44:56):
off limits when it's your dayjob?
And then everything is funny.
Like everything is funny.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
And it's look, it's a bit's look there are no taboos.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
you can talk about anything.
Yeah, it's a little bit of aliability when you're out, like
at a public restaurant or a baror a cafe, you're just trying to
talk about a fat fire or like agrave collapsing or like a
punch up at a funeral orwhatever it is.
Yeah, all of which you know arepart of the job, but having you
(45:28):
know, having some pragmatismand having a good sense of humor
, I think, are things that allowpeople to do this work, which
is really important actually.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Brilliant, that's great.
I mean, just as we sort of wrapup here what kind of final word
.
I mean it doesn't matter ifyou're baby boomer or you're Gen
X, millennial, gen Z?
What kind of final piece ofadvice would you give to people
about death or death care or theindustry, or just about?
(45:58):
Just a quick meaning of life,wrap up yeah, just wrap up with
a quick, just just sum it up forus in two sentences.
No, I'm just joking um I'm justcurious, you know, because it's
something we did look at on theabc show.
I mean, the the fun of thatdocumentary was kind of just.
I mean, if you had to sum it upinto a single phrase was be
(46:21):
prepared, but I wonder what yourthoughts are on it.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
I think it's not be prepared is good, but I think it
is actually to not hold on tootightly to anything.
Right, like don't have a plan,have preferences, whatever it is
, but like being with death isfundamentally learning to be
(46:48):
with uncertainty.
Right, we don't know when it'sgoing to happen.
It might happen tomorrow, whoknows it's going to where?
When all these kind of things.
It's a practice in like justbeing okay with uncertainty, and
so preparation is great.
Talking to people is better.
Like having your own plans isgreat.
Talking to somebody about thoseplans is even better.
And then the final thing isjust find a way to make that
(47:12):
conversation fun.
So, like find an in you know,scattering your ashes at a
famous football ground orcricket ground, or if it's like
what would be the best playlistor best last meal, or whatever
(47:34):
it is.
Find an in to start thatconversation.
Because I think, as we'vediscussed, like the cocktail
party effect, the Uber driver ifyou do start the conversation
and stay, you study death.
Then often you can have areally great conversation.
Um, but you just kind of haveto be a little courageous to
start yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Speaking of which, what are your death plans?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
you must be well prepared um, I mean, they do
change quite frequently.
I have taken I mean I have akind of standing agreement with
Shane at Lidl Cemetery that ifhe is still working when I die
he will cremate me.
He's a lovely human being.
I think he'd be a good person.
(48:17):
I will probably.
I don't live near the body farmso I probably can't donate my
body to a body farm science.
But you know, take all my organstake everything that anyone can
use.
As I said, I'm a materialist.
I think that when I'm dead.
I'm not there, and if there'sanything useful, people can take
that and do good with it.
(48:37):
And yeah, cremate me, I don'tmind where I am, do something
fun.
I and yeah, cremate me, I don'tmind where I am, do something
fun.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
I did notice in the corner of your office.
There you've got what's that.
You can see the coffin In thecorner of your office.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
So, okay, this is the .
I know empty shelves, which isreally embarrassing for a
scholar, but there's a reasonthere's empty shelves.
And that is because this is mycoffin.
This is the coffin that I willbe probably cremated in.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Look, they're probably cremated in.
Look at that.
So hannah's getting in thecoffin.
Oh my god, do you?
Oh, it's cardboard.
So if you can't get in it,because you would, it would
knock over.
Yeah, I'll crush it.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
So it's a cardboard coffin and, um, I use it in
teaching, so my students, uh,decorate it every year.
Oh wow, they add stories andthey add kind of how they feel
about learning about death, andthey've added memorials to
people they know who have lovedto have died, and there's
religious texts from alldifferent religions.
And I started doing this awhile ago when I was teaching
(49:32):
death, and then I thought, well,it would be a shame to waste it
when I go, so it's just becomemy coffin.
This is the coffin I will beburied in, and I often think you
know, save you money.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
Great, I love it.
It looks great.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, some nice drawings on there.
Yeah, it's great.
And then every year studentscan add more and eventually
it'll just be, you know, notsome small part of me, it'll be.
You know, all of my students Iever taught will be part of my
death, which I think is quitenice.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Brilliant, my coffin.
That's great.
You've got your coffin allready to go.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah, always prepaid.
You know, no, I just some matesgave me that I didn't even pay
for it.
It's a free coffin.
I was like, wow, I'll take thatone.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Thanks, anna.
So before the end of thesechats I always like to ask if
anyone has anything to plug orany socials or anything to tell
people about pluggity time.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
The exciting thing that I have coming out is I have
finally written a popular bookabout death and dying and it is
out next year, so you'll have towait a little bit.
But it's out in 2026 withJameson Hudson and it is called
how to Die in the 21st CenturyLessons in Mortality.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
What's it about?
Speaker 2 (50:45):
It's about six lessons in how to die and how
death and dying has changed inthe 21st century and therefore,
like, what does that mean forwhen we, you know, do a funeral
or cremate someone, and whatdoes that mean for grief and how
to approach that?
So it's kind of a how-to guidefor death but for life.
Yeah, you know, know, upliftingoh yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
All right, well, um once we have more information
about that, um I'll post it onsocials and put in the link and
all sorts of stuff, and you letus know um fantastic.
Do you have social media or doyou got a website?
Speaker 2 (51:18):
I always like yes.
So, um, if people would like tofollow up with me and follow
what I'm doing and publicationsand future books and, I don't
know, podcasts, musical theatreone day, who knows?
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Media appearances.
You do a few of those every nowand then.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
Media appearances, lots of TV.
They can just go tohannahgouldcom.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
That's me.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
I exited all other social media because I kept
reminding myself that I wasgoing to die, and so I thought I
should stop wasting time on it.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
It's probably very healthy.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, just remember, you're going to die everyone.
It's fine, you'll be fine, it'sfine.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Nothing you do about it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
We're all going to die Live with it.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Yeah, just live with the fact that you're going to
die.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah, fact that you're going to die.
Yeah see, sounds easy, prettytough, we'll get there bro
hannah gould, thank you so muchfor taking the time.
Lovely to speak with you.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
Thank you for having me so lovely to speak to you.
All right, we'll catch you soon.
And that is it for this week'sepisode.
Um, I want to say a massivethank you to Hannah for taking
the time to share herexperiences with us and a huge
thanks to you all as well forlistening.
For photos, links and moreabout this episode, please head
(52:34):
to noordinarymondaycom and lookfor the episode page.
You can also find informationon our socials via Linktree.
Our handle is NoOrdinaryMonday.
If you have questions or want toshare your own career story
with us, we'd love to hear fromyou.
Please get in touch via oursocials.
You can also email helloH-E-L-L-O at NoOrdinaryMondaycom
(53:00):
or you can use the submit youryour Story page on our website.
And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick
things for us Give us afive-star rating and review and
tell a friend.
It really helps us grow theshow and attract more amazing
guests and inspire new listeners.
The next episode will be abrilliant two-parter.
(53:24):
I speak to Tony Bonner, aformer trauma nurse who was one
of the first at the scene at theinfamous Lockerbie bombing in
1988.
It's a really fascinating andactually really well told story,
so you don't want to miss it.
So please subscribe and be thefirst to get new episodes.
This show is produced, hostedand edited by me, chris Barron.
(53:47):
Thank you so much for listeningand have a great Monday
everyone.
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