No Ordinary Monday
The No Ordinary Monday podcast brings you the most incredible tales from people's working lives. Each week, we meet someone whose work is anything but ordinary - they may be clearing landmines, blowing up movie sets, or exploring uncharted caves.
We dive into the how, the why, and a life-defining moment they’ve experienced on the job. Whether it’s spine-tingling, hilarious, or just plain jaw-dropping, their stories will challenge what you thought a “career” could be—and maybe even change the way you think about your own.
No Ordinary Monday
Studying Death, For a Living (Anthropologist)
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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?
Hannah's website - https://www.hannahgould.com/
Hannah's 2023 book "When Death Falls Apart" - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo207948066.html
ABC Documentary "Matt Okine is Going to Die" - https://www.abc.net.au/contentsales/programsandgenres/matt-okine-is-going-to-die/102898066
Follow Hannah on Instagram @hrhgould - https://www.instagram.com/hrhgould/
Hannah's academic work - https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/279539-hannah-harewood-gould
University Of Melbourne's Death Tech team - https://deathtech.research.unimelb.edu.au/
Careers in the Death Care industry -
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Welcome to Death and Dying
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another episode of no Ordinary Monday. Thank you so much for joining us. I am your host, chris Barron, and each week I sit down with a guest whose job is far from ordinary. We explore how they got there and what it's really like behind the scenes, and then they'll deep dive into the single most unforgettable experience of their career. Today, I've got someone a bit different for you. My guest is someone whose job centers around an interesting and often taboo subject.
Speaker 1Dr Hannah Gould is an anthropologist who studies death and dying. Hannah Gould is an anthropologist who studies death and dying. Everything from the rituals that we perform to the realities of the death care industry and its workers, which you can imagine, takes her to some dark but pretty fascinating places that few of us get to see. In Hannah's big story, she relives the time that she attended a massive death care conference in Japan and ended up being on stage as a demonstration corpse, which is a very funny story. So stick around for that. I'm going to give a quick trigger warning here for this episode. While the conversation we have is mostly fun and insightful, we do, of course, touch on some topics around death which may be difficult or confronting for some listeners, so please do use discretion. With all that said, I am incredibly excited to bring you guys this conversation with Hannah. You are listening to no Ordinary 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. Cold, yeah, chilly. Brisbane Sorry Melbourne, sorry, not Brisbane.
Speaker 1No no, no, we don't do Brisbane, we're called Melbourne. Yeah, so it's actually, I don't know, maybe a couple of years since we last saw each other face-to-face when we were working on a documentary about death for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Yeah.
Speaker 2Up in Sydney a documentary about death. One of the weirder emails and phone calls I've ever received.
Speaker 1And that's coming from a death researcher.
Speaker 2And from a death researcher. So you know, my inbox is just filled with some absolute pals members of the public, various tech people, doctors et cetera, just asking me for my hot takes about cremation et cetera. But yeah, no, you stood out. Nice, Very fun experience, but also again, one of the oddest experiences of uh, filming that and then trying to smuggle a small corpse model through domestic airport in sydney so basically yeah, some context required for that anecdote, yeah so we were, yeah, so we were making a documentary for the abc about, uh, you know, death and dying.
Speaker 1And uh, we had this great host, matt, who's a comedian, and um, I think we were kind of like, oh, how do we sort of make this interesting for people and show all the different ways that you can, like, get?
Speaker 2prepared or treated after you die? How do you get rid of a body?
Speaker 1yeah. 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 2seven or eight different ways we can like.
Speaker 1Literally, we're going to flame him with, like a little torch. We're going to bury him at sea.
Speaker 2We'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 from that, from that recording?
Speaker 1Yeah, I noticed he's on this in the shelf behind you.
Speaker 2Try to place my office. But one of the things was I did have to kind of you know, I only took hand language, so I had to take him back through my hand language in Sydney airport. And what I didn't realize at the time, which I must have knew, is that it has like a wire frame through the middle of the paper machine yeah. So it goes through the scanner and it comes up with this tiny little and he's in a coffin, right.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I get stopped. I don't know if I ever told you this. I got stopped and my bags got opened.
Speaker 1I don't think you told me no.
Speaker 2I got my bags got opened. I don't think you told me no, I got my bags got opened and they were like I mean they didn't like outright say why do you have a small, you know voodoo doll in your bag? Of a famous Australian comedian, but I think it was implied and I just kind of had to look at them and be like I have an interesting job. I'm sorry, what do you want from me here?
Speaker 1Like is this illegal? Did you? Did you tell them, like, what you're at that point? Did you have to explain like I am a death researcher?
Speaker 2or I just kind of said I've just. I just kind of said oh, I've been up here filming some tv and this is one of the props. Is there anything like it doesn't? I think I said it doesn't contain liquid it hasn't got organs.
Speaker 1It's like did.
Speaker 2I think it's like I don't know. I mean, I imagine that that is like one of those jobs where you just find the absolute weirdest stuff in people's bags and you just have to really yeah, stone face ignore it, because people can carry whatever they can carry, but um yeah, I think certainly like the mini miniature coffin that matt signed for me.
Speaker 1Certainly didn't necessarily help with the yeah, um yeah, great experience obviously like, yeah, it was super fun, but, um, I mean, I guess, with all that said, what, what would you say is the most interesting way to explain what you do for a living?
Speaker 2wow, I mean, in some ways, um, my job is very boring in the sense that it's a very normal job, I think I I work and I teach at a university. Um, I suppose the odd thing about my job is that I do that researching two very non-controversial topics, which is religion and death. Um, yeah, and specifically, I focus a lot on dead bodies and what to do with them and how we treat them and like how our religious responses to them have changed. So my job, basically, is to try and understand, like, what is going on with death and dying in Australia and also I do work in Northeast Asia and Japan and Korea and then to try and use those findings to create some kind of meaningful change.
Speaker 2Right, so, educating students about policy, policy change kind of thing yeah, well, first of all like educating students to be more comfortable with death and talk about death, um, particularly medical students. I teach a lot of medical students about how to say the D word and then also policy change. So things like big questions like should we be allowed to bury our pets with us in cemeteries, or how much does death cost, how much should death cost?
Speaker 1Who should pay for a funeral, which is a big question, massive question, bigger question, yeah.
Speaker 2Which you know all really normal, except then you add the element of staring into the existential void that is our mortality every day.
Speaker 1I think I can just imagine it like using the cocktail party test, like you're sort of milling around and someone comes up to you and says oh hey, what did you do? You're like oh, I'm an academic, I'm anthropologist and they start to glaze over.
Speaker 2And then you're like I about death and they're like oh, okay, yeah, I have lied to admitting an uber driver I've got to say, which I actually think is a really good test of if your job is weird, is like, do you? Like an uber driver because I if you were tired and you're just trying to get in a car somewhere and they ask you what you do and you're like looking at them and you think I don't know if I really was like why are you here?
Speaker 1oh?
Speaker 2I'm here for the annual cemeteries convention yeah.
Speaker 1So what is it like? Clearly, people's reactions are their 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 like there's a weird way that we treat death in some ways that we're so obsessed with it, with like true crime, so much like in like media, for example, like 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 kind of contradiction.
Speaker 2So I mean the kind of the theory that we've rejected now is that death is taboo or like that. No one ever wants to talk about death or think about death. And exactly what you're saying is like well, no, because people bloody love true crime podcasts. I'm in melbourne, everyone's been following the mushroom murderer. That's been all the news.
Teaching Doctors to Say the D-Word
Speaker 2That's all that all we've got you know, and and also, like you know, video games. It seems like the more gruesome the death, the better, right, like people are really attracted to this kind of extraordinary deaths, right, and they're not so interested in thinking about death in the kind of normal, banal, aka the kinds of deaths that they imagine could happen to them. Right, and I think that's always made a lot more sense to me. It's that it remains taboo, but the nature of taboo is that humans, like humans, desperately love to break taboos.
Speaker 1We're just not necessarily so comfortable doing it in public. I mean, I think the thing that is he mentioned earlier that you do a lot of work with, like medical students, doctors, people in the medical field, like those are arguably some of the people that are closest to the conversation, because every day they may see people die, they may actually be the people that are trying to prevent death and all that sort of stuff, and they're some of the people that have the hardest time talking like I'm just I was so surprised that like people in that field aren't so, um, well conversed in like talking about death and like facing death and dealing with death and knowing what to do, so like, like, just tell me like what, what have you experienced when you're working with them.
Speaker 2So we've only been teaching like death and dying 101 at Melbourne uni since like a couple of years now. That's crazy.
Speaker 1And before that there was nothing. It was just like you are a doctor, you go and save lives.
Speaker 2This is an elective subject and really they don't even in their core, they don't even really get you know. There's like how to deliver bad news. I suppose Some training. It's not you know, in the fundamental curriculum, but it's just kind of other things. Like, you know, cremation versus burial, or what should you do to the body, how do you handle a body at the point of death or dying so that it, you know, gets to the family in the best condition, for example, like super practical? Or like you know, should you say the d word? Like what does the research actually say about how to talk to people about death and dying and what families want and what patients want?
Speaker 2And that kind of thing is pretty shocking in the sense that it's not being educated to doctors and I think it's kind of sad, not only because people don't have the language or they don't have to deal with it. But what I always think is extraordinary is, like you know, the students we get in death and dying and the medical subject. We get them like 12 weeks into their medical degree. They've only you know, they've only just started medical subject. We get them like 12 weeks into their medical degree. They've only, you know, they've only just started, yeah, and already 12 weeks in, they are incredibly scared but also guilty, like they genuinely think that if somebody dies it's their fault and they've failed right murder yeah, this idea of failure is like the goal of medicine is to save people and if somebody dies, then I have not done medicine well.
Speaker 2Like death is death is. The goal of medicine is to save people and if somebody dies, then I have not done medicine well like death is, death is the literal anti, is the enemy, like we're constantly fighting him off.
Speaker 2Yet it's not this fault for these like young trainee doctors, because, like that is how the medical system has been, apart from, like some fields like palliative medicine, who are obviously brilliant on this. That is how the majority and you know it slipped into our everyday language. You know, you think about cancer like it's a battle, it's a fight, you know all these kind of things. And so obviously, if somebody dies, they lose their battle with cancer.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2No one ever just dies Like you have to lose a battle with cancer, which I think is terrible terminology. So we kind of have to do a lot of work.
Speaker 1Have you got a better way of phrasing it?
Speaker 2They had cancer and then they died. Well, they died from cancer.
Speaker 1It just doesn't have to be a war.
Speaker 2Yeah, it doesn't have to be a war. I mean, we talk about that. We talk about like should you use the D word, and you know you don't always have to use it but there's so many numerous examples, like pretty horrific examples of a lack of communication or a failure of communication and families not clocking on to the fact that their loved one's going say things like we're going to stop medical interventions or we're recommending palliation, or we're moving you to comfort care.
Speaker 1They'll never actually say you will die.
Speaker 2Like. We suspect that you will die within the next however many months. So we're not sure when you're going to die, but we suspect that this you know. We're pretty sure this illness will kill you. You will die. We don't think there's anything we can do to prevent that have you ever thought about?
Speaker 1I mean, you've ever sort of yourself, yeah, keep it a bit nicer, but like if you were in that position yeah like getting that news. Would you not want them to sugarcoat it, or at least sugarcoat it for your family, or would you?
Speaker 2be like I've been in that position. Just say like it is. I've been in that position though, like I've seen. So my dad died. One of the reasons I got into this whole work is like my dad died 2013, like 13 years ago.
Speaker 212 years ago, I was super young, I was 22, 23, um. I thought I was very mature and totally able to deal with that knowledge. When it happened, um, you know, and I was like he was in hospice and I was in hospice with him and he had not accepted the fact that he was dying and was kept asking about, like, potential treatments, that sort of stuff. And I saw the doctor come in and kind of just entertain his idea that there might be possible treatments like that, and I was like this is ridiculous, like and I think part of it is that, you know, I wonder if it's that doctors are really worried about destroying hope, right, that they think hope is so important, right? We can't let people give up or have an existential crisis, to which I can only reply like it's death. Of course you're going to have an existential crisis.
Speaker 1That's kind of the point you're not supposed to be okay with it, but it doesn't mean you can't deal with it.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think it's exactly right, a hundred percent of those things. You're like you don't have to be okay with it, like you don't, it's not something. And that getting out of that mindset for students like you know this is not something you can solve, it's not something. And getting out of that mindset for 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 to think about, instead of like their goal being life-saving is, I say to them you know every single patient that you see, whether you're a podiatrist or pediatrics or chiropractic, you know not just the medical profession, any kind of health, every single person. Your job is either to help them die later or die better. Yeah, but they're both going to, they're all going to die.
Speaker 1No one's going to live forever.
Speaker 2No one has ever made it out of here alive yeah, we're all you know. So you're not saving them from death. You're either delaying it or making it better, and hopefully both like have you?
Speaker 1have you had any feedback from those students about that course? Have they gone? All you know it's completely changed the way I've thought about it.
Speaker 2Or the first time that a patient did die on me, you know I would thought back to what you're saying, blah, blah that I've had medical students actually who have come into the program being like I'm really terrified 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 of that fear, they're now far more comfortable. I think in the conversations they're having and hopefully also when they then go to the hospital and see a death you know, declaration verification they feel more comfortable, right, and they can be better for the family and for their colleagues as well.
The Reality of Crematorium Work
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned your father's passing or say the father died.
Speaker 2Yeah, he died, it's fine. It's so natural for me to even say to someone who's experienced that he lost.
Speaker 1I was like he's not, like he's not behind the couch, like we know where he is he lost him, 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 love to sort of understand people's origin stories, so that's obviously your origin story into the death industry. But but even before that, what did you want to be as a kid? Do you? Do you remember?
Speaker 2well, when I was, uh, six, uh, when I was six, chris, I wanted to be either a ballerina or a fairy, as my mom likes to remind me.
Speaker 1When did those dreams get crushed?
Speaker 2The two viable career choices. That I no. I mean. I was reflecting on this the other day, I think I was always a very precocious, very studious young child and I distinctly remember the first time I met somebody who was like a young woman who had a doctorate, who was studying for her PhD, and I thought thought oh my god, like I could do that, like I would.
Speaker 2I want to get a PhD. That's the thing I want to do. I want to work at a university and I was at Oxford for my master's and I was studying religion. So I've always been really interested in different religious, cultural beliefs and specifically I mean in this kind of the fundamental question of death, which is like how does, how does matter relate to spirits? It's kind of an odd way of putting it, but you know, um, a cross, a crucifix is just a crucifix. How does it become holy? Right, like? An altar is just an altar. It's a piece of wood. Sometimes they're mass-produced pieces of wood, they're carved Like how does that feel?
Speaker 1But we imbue them with power.
Speaker 2Yeah, how do we imbue them with power? Like, how do we imagine where does the power come from? When does a thing become holy, when does it become more than just stuff, which ironically is kind of the opposite of the body, right, like this is a thing that was human and at some point it stops maybe being human and is now a thing like it was a subject and now is an object yeah, and so there's a process by which the kind of in, you know, this kind of spirit, you know, leaves the body at some point, and I, I say spirit not in a particularly religious way, but like in any kind of this recognition that this is more than just stuff.
Speaker 2And like what is the process by which this thing, which is more than stuff, eventually does just become stuff, or does it ever become stuff which, like, is not a? You know? I think I got my PhD some time ago. I'm not going to answer this one. Yeah. I suspect it may be a fundamental question of the human condition, as opposed to an easy topic.
Speaker 1So yeah.
Speaker 2I started studying like religion and Buddhism and Buddhist materiality, and it just kind of so happened or, weirdly enough, the kind of the Buddhist altars that I was focusing on are also where people make offerings to the ancestors, and so I became more and more engaged in ancestor worship, veneration, death. And then my dad died and big question right Like, what on earth is going on? I remember this distinct moment of funeral planning for him, where there was I don't know if you've ever arranged a funeral. Have you ever arranged a funeral, chris?
Speaker 1I haven't.
Speaker 2No, I mean touch with them being lucky not to most people like probably, if they're lucky, will only do one or two in their lives, right? Most people who are privileged enough to you know outlive their children to you know, if you're lucky, you'll probably one or two, which is great. But I remember this distinct moment they bring all these like glossy books to your house. They did in the day. I'm sure it's on iPads now.
Speaker 2But they're like catalogues of coffins and they all have these absolutely naff, terrible names that are like Mahogany's Kiss or rosewood and jewel, you know like worse than paint colors, kind of terrible made up names for these brands. And I just had this like moment of sitting there and trying to like pick a coffin, thinking like who on earth designed this? Like, why is this the stuff that we've decided is the stuff that we want for the dead? Yeah, and also, you know, being someone who's quite a materialist, like in the sense of like quite an atheist, you know I was like I'm just dead, it doesn't matter what box he's in, like why am I, why am I shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for mahogany's kiss or whatever the coffin is?
Speaker 2um, yeah and so I think that just like reaffirmed this idea that, no, this is the thing I should do, this is the thing I should study, which is is death and dying in australia and and kind of that relationship between stuff and and spirit um, cool, so you mentioned um, you've done a lot of work in australia.
Speaker 1You've done a lot of work in, obviously, like asia you know korea, japan as well, and you know just observing how different people, different countries, different cultures deal with death and the rituals around death. I'm just really curious, like what are some of the most unsettling or horrifying or beautiful things that you've seen when you, when you're looking at all it could be in Australia or anywhere else. Have you worked? I think one of it could be in Australia or anywhere else that you've worked.
Speaker 2I think one of the weirdest things about working in death is that it's both horrifying and beautiful at the same time.
Speaker 2A lot of the time and that's like it almost it always struck me as almost like too much information was going into my brain, like a real challenge to process and understand what had just happened.
Speaker 2I mean, obviously I have this job, which is similar to your job in many ways that you know, I go into these worlds, I go into these workplaces for a few weeks or a few months and I, you know, I learn how to cremate a body and I learn how to bury somebody, or maybe not similar to what you do every day. You know, I get to experience these insights into people's world and I have to remember that, like all those people are, that is their day to day, that is their nine to five. Right, and like I don't think we often think about like someone's nine to five being cremating a body, but that is somebody's, that's a lot of people'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 bawdy jokes to deal with the emotional stress of having to, and they do these people, like they do, experience stress?
Speaker 2I guess, yeah, I, it's really funny because I'm always kind of almost hesitant to share stories, because I think I'm trying to be, I try and be very careful about what I share and I try and, um, I will tell you a story that's quite confronting. But, um, one of the hardest things working at the creme is like, I think, you know, not for me, like going in there for a few days, but for the people who actually work there nine to five is obviously children and child death and having to cremate children remains Partially because so little of a child makes it through the crematorium right that it produces such little material. And you know, thinking about death and the sacred like, if there is one thing that is sacred across societies, it is children, and so children dying is such a tragedy in every circumstance. And so people working in the crematorium you'd think, oh, they must be immune to this by now. This is their day-to-day. But the same time, like when there is a kid that comes through that is the same age as someone's child, you know, child who works there, that's a really tough day for everyone at the cram. I mean, look, I always struggle to share it because I don't know how much people want to know. But you know there's a real experience of, of just talking to this guy who went to the cram and we're just having this casual conversation, and while we were having that casual conversation he was crushing the bones of an infant with the back of a teaspoon.
Speaker 2Because that was the like usually cremation you, you put the remains through a whole machine which is like a, a cramulator, and it produces this fine ash and, like you know, usually for most human remains there's a lot of ash. But when it's a child, like the cremation staff do all the best that they can to make sure that all 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 or the parents, and so the best way to do it is to do it manually. Right, and I just think it was such an odd I mean, of all the uses of the term, surreal, that is probably the one that really, you know, I'm just chatting to him about work and life and that and he's doing this kind of incredibly traumatic, meaningful I think, I almost think about it as just like superlative.
Speaker 2It is everything too much in that experience? Right, like everything too much is happening and then, like he does, like maybe three or four of those a day and then goes back to his family and has dinner and goes to the Cremations or.
Speaker 1Children like crashing, you know so yeah.
Becoming a Demonstration Corpse
Speaker 2I mean depending on the crematorium and the capacity and you know all these other questions, and I think it kind of one of the things that's like so hard to talk about those experiences, I think, because they affect a lot of people and obviously you know, if people you know have kids, imagining that's so horrific. But I also think that it's so incredibly sad that we don't imagine that more, in the sense that we never think about the people whose job that is. We desperately want them to do a good job, we want them to be good people and we want them to do their job well because we need them to. But we don't pay them very well and you know, when they say they work at a crematorium, we maybe 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 and we really want them to do it.
Speaker 1well, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2And so it's this kind of this. You know, as horrible as that not horrible, but as intense as that experience is, it's like my gosh, you know, know, you really hope that on your worst day there's someone who is willing to do that, yeah, and is willing to do that work they're good at their job and they take they take pride in their job and blah they don't do it yeah, and if it means that they have to tell some like bawdy jokes to get through the day, like I am all for good for them.
Speaker 2Do whatever they need to do, because that is not. You know, I was only there for a couple of weeks, but like that is not something that I could do.
Speaker 1So, um, on the show, we like people to come on and share sort of the I guess, the craziest experience of their career. Sometimes that's a single day, sometimes an event. Um, obviously you've done and seen a lot in your time. I'm wondering if you can share some a story or stories from, from your experiences um.
Speaker 2So one of the oddest experiences is and I think this is probably drives home how normal but also odd this whole sector is is like there's lots of really big funerals, cemeteries, crematorium, industry conventions around the world. Famously, the American one is often in Vegas, which is super fun to you know. Go to Vegas and look at rows and rows of the latest and greatest new inventions in coffins Wow. But the one that I often go to is in Tokyokyo, japan, and that again is like in a big convention center. You wake up in the morning, get a coffee, go to the convenience store, you're there, you're ready and you go into this convention center and it's just like several football fields worth of death, tech, death, merch, death, stuff. Like it's a trade show, right yeah yeah, and it any.
Speaker 2Every industry has a trade show, and the death care sector has a trade show, and so you know my day this is a few years ago, this industry convention called index, and my day kind of began with witnessing a robotic Buddhist priest recite sutras for the dead.
Speaker 1Oh, my God.
Speaker 2Moved on to Did it look like a robot or?
Speaker 1did it look like an android kind of-. Oh, it's a robot.
Speaker 2It's called Pepper. It's a robot created by SoftBank and it was designed well. It was used in this case because they don't have enough Buddhist priests to recite sutras for the aging population, oh my God. So I started there, which is a totally very weird start to your morning, and then I walked over. I mean, this is all in a single day. I walked over to where someone was giving out free samples of coffee, but the coffee beans were being ground with a recycled gravestone, so it was like two big pieces of marble that they had created like a millstone of delicious coffee. So you've kind of been freaked out by the Buddhist robot. Then you get your coffee. So you've kind of been freaked out by the Buddhist robot. Then you get your coffee. You walk over to the people who are selling mobile pet crematoriums, where they'll drive around the countryside with a van that has a furnace and cremate your pet on the spot for you Sure my God, transition to the kind of fashion designers for funeral dress and end up, in my case, at this school that offers um, like ritual dressing, mortuary dressing for the dead.
Speaker 2In japan, people might be familiar.
Speaker 2There's quite a famous oscar award-winning film called Departures Okuribito in Japanese, which is about this quite traditional practice in a small part of Japan of like washing and dressing the dead in front of the family.
Speaker 2So the mortician would come into the home, the dead is laid out in the kind of living room and they would basically, you know, clean, wash, dress, then change the clothes, switch the clothes, put the makeup on for the dead, and this is all like performed in front of the family and it's done this extremely ritualized, careful manner so that, like, no part of bare skin is ever visible to the family and it's all incredibly respectful and it's done like in a very ritualized, beautiful fashion. Um, they're having so you walk up to this, you know Okuribidō Academy who are who are teaching young people this, this skill about how to dress the dead, and they're having like a. They're having this competition for funeral professionals and there's three categories Hottest monk Important Ikeman, yeah, but like hot in the sense of like the full package, so also can give you know greatest, give a great sermon but also looks good.
Speaker 2Hottest monk Miss funeral attendant also can give you know greatest great give a great sermon but also looks good you know hottest monk, miss funeral attendant. Like miss universe, but like miss funeral attendant, yeah yeah, and then, um, they were having like a, a corpse dressing competition. That was for, like, who can dress the body the quickest, most most professional, most beautiful? Yeah, you know on a live stage with live music pumped in the background oh my God With like commentators, and you know immediately yes, I will be a demonstration corpse. This is what my life has been leading up.
Speaker 1To Hand went straight up, hand straight up.
Speaker 2And like it should be said also, I'm the only white person there, I'm the only foreigner there, I speak Japanese, you know, you can get around, like, so you know, this is mostly. It's not even for media. It's like this is an internal space, this is by the funeral sector for the funeral sector, right, and this is for people who, which I think, are always interesting spaces to be in, but I was, which I think, are always interesting spaces to be. I was like I will, I will do this, 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 just a, in some ways, an out-of-body experience, because, so you know, so wait, so it was like three, like more.
Speaker 1Were you the only one? Or there was? You were like, you were just a demonstration corp and multiple people were like competing to like dress you for funeral.
Speaker 2Oh, no, there was multiple people, multiple demonstration corpses.
Speaker 1Okay On the event on this occasion.
Speaker 2I mean, I've done this a few times at this convention. I think they must think I'm a bit obsessed now. But the first time it happened it was just like you walked up to this, like stand at a convention center and there's like tatami mats out and there's like a pile of white kimono you buried in white in japan traditionally. Um, I was like white kimono out and they kind of say we're gonna have a demonstration. Is there a volunteer from the crowd? Immediately, yes, yes, this is what I want to do. Um, this is after the robot priest and the milk ground coffee. And I'm like I'm already there. I'm like sign me up, now is my time. And so I was like okay. And I said well, wait, what do you need me to do? I'm just like wearing, like you know, suit, whatever.
Speaker 2I was like what do you mean doing is just like we'll just pretend to be dead and lie down. And I was like okay, but immediately. I mean I immediately screwed it up because like the first thing that happens is you're lying there and he comes and the person who's doing the dressing comes and bows over the corpse. But I am so ingrained, having lived in japan at that point for multiple months that I like bow, as I'm like there as the corpse, you know, like, like this, like you know, thank you for your stop moving, you're dead. So I failed immediately. But after that it was just like really odd. They obviously didn't undress me, they were just putting on the clothing that they would usually put on in that case, but it was. It kind of felt like a really rough massage that had absolutely no care about what it must feel like because, as it struck me this person's not really thinking how the dead will appreciate it or not.
Speaker 2This is a visual performance for the people sitting in front, so it's just kind of like people shoving a lot of fabric underneath you very quickly and like trying to wrap you in the right materials and like it was kind of a monty python comedy of errors. Like my feet were too big for like whatever the japanese size, like feet coverings they had and like. And were they laughing or were they kind of getting a?
Speaker 1little bit stressed because this is a like, whatever the Japanese size, like feet coverings they had and like. And were they laughing or were they kind of getting a little bit stressed?
Speaker 2Because this is a competition right, no hyper serious hyper serious, oh.
Speaker 1Really.
Speaker 2Nothing can unflappable. Unflappable Because that's their whole job is to be unflappable I mean funeral attendants, funeral directors, anyone who runs a funeral, I mean get them to organize anything in your life because they've got skills. But also completely unflappable because, like it is their job to appear calm, collected, like everything's perfect, even if it's all falling apart, which often is, because that's the other thing. Funerals often go wrong. They're just events that things often go wrong.
Speaker 2So this is all kind of like a bit of a common areas and I can't see anything. I just really want to see something, 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 in which I just became dressed as a corpse and oh my god, but wait, did you, did you, did you win?
Speaker 2uh, my guy was like the. Yeah, he was like the head, he's like the head. I went to the top for my first corpse dressing experience, wow.
Speaker 1But have subsequently.
Speaker 2So you were like yeah, I got the gold treatment.
Speaker 1You were a good corpse. You were a very good corpse.
Speaker 2I was a very good corpse. It's a skill that you don't really think about and then you end up at some point in your life thinking it's like a real record scratch moment in my life.
Speaker 1So one of the things that we actually covered on the documentary when we worked together on that one- um or you were part of, but it's.
Peak Death and Industry Opportunities
Speaker 1It's this idea of peak death, you know oh, yeah, and it's something that I have been following kind of separately, just the fact that population is in decline yeah which essentially means in the coming years we're going to have a lot more dead people than people being born, but essentially just the population of aging people and people dying will increase. Um, I, there's several things I want to go into on this. Obviously, like you know, there's careers in the death industry and that market and all that stuff. But like, just talk us through, like that sort of concept, what's happening, right?
Speaker 2now. Yeah, I mean, look, if you're looking for a career path that AI will not disrupt handling dead bodies Can I introduce that?
Speaker 1Except if it's robots into priests.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1Yeah, god damn it.
Speaker 2The robots will win again. So, yeah, peak death is a little bit of an amorphous concept. It's not very well studied yet and it's something I'm actually hoping to do a big project on in a couple of years, but it is something that we've noted a little bit more in aged care. But peak death is basically a phenomenon where more people die than ever before as a result of our demographics, and they are demographics of ageing populations and particularly demographics of populations that experienced a post-World War II baby boom and then subsequently the baby boomers have not had as many kids as their generation, as it were. So we've got this kind of bulge in our demographics, and I think the youngest baby boomer is just past 65 this year, which is what Australia classifies as an older person.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I always find this quite awkward to talk about because I'm a millennial and there's something particularly. Yeah. So when I stand up in front of a room of people, particularly when I'm asking for funding, and say the baby rumors will die, like you know, bless her, her heart. My professor here. She's like well, you can't say that. I'm like what do you mean? I can't say that she's like well, but I don't want to hear it. I'm like well, but millennials will die. I'm fine saying that there's no, it's not an offense.
Speaker 2This is not an accusation yeah you. You're older australians. You're gonna die soon. This is fine like this is what happens to everyone. But the question is not so much like there's a two-part question. One is like does our death care system, does our death care 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 professionals who work in the sector, whether that be a grief counsellor or a probate lawyer or I don't know?
Speaker 2a crematorium officer, whatever it is you know, is this are we going to be able to handle this? And you know, add to that the spicy, fun, exciting perspective of a pandemic. Throw that in somewhere, you know there, that could also put pressure. And then I think the second one that's also kind of interesting is what is it about that generation that might change our relationship with death, both in how they approach death and how they choose to die, but then also like how their children choose to bury and cremate and commemorate them? So not to say that there's both like challenges and opportunities, but there's like a concern about capacity in my mind. But then there's also like a lot of interesting questions about like well then, what will this look like? Because I don't, we haven't really hit there yet Like it's coming.
Speaker 2I'm deeply, I've always wanted to 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 get published. Clickbait title and then a very compassionate and considered book which is just about yeah yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1I mean I said like in today's world, especially for like X Gen Z, the job market doesn't look as strong as it may have been in our generation.
Speaker 2Putting, it mildly yeah, things are not getting right for my young students who are thinking how to make a living.
Speaker 1The death care industry is a strong place to look. I mean, if people were interested. I mean there's a lot of work that is going to a lot of demand for work in that sector. But, what you've worked with a lot of these people. What does it sort of depend? I mean, there's a huge spectrum of roles you can take in the death care industry, but I mean generally, what does it take to be someone that sort of works with death every day?
Speaker 2to be someone that sort of works with death every day. Yeah, it's an interesting question because, you know, someone who creates bodies every day can be a rather different skill set to somebody who is sitting down with families to arrange a funeral. Yeah, so you know, there's a whole group of people who say their job is horticulture and their job is to, you know, look after cemeteries and do the lawns and do the botanical gardens and maybe dig a grave so that's an area that you could get, but, um, what does it take to deal with death every day?
Speaker 2I think one of the interesting things is that I think we would go back to talking about, like, death taboos and death anxiety. What I find really interesting is that there's two groups of people that we tend to think that 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 has found and this is ongoing is that actually, if you have strong religious belief or if you have strong atheist convictions, then you're less afraid of death, and it's the great kind of uncertainty that is what tends to make people more anxious about death, right, so it's almost like an inverted u in terms of, um, death anxiety, and I think you don't need to have all the answers or 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 enter into death and to work in death, but you need either some kind of 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 in a, in a field that can very emotionally taxing and distressing. And also, like go home and go to the footy, like have something that grounds you, that is part of your life, that's good and wholesome, and it's your dog and it's running a marathon and it's knitting, it's whatever it is.
Speaker 2And then I think you, I mean it's like a requirement, which is that you must have a good sense of humor. Like whatever you do in death care, you have to laugh, because I mean, the alternative is that you cry and you can't invest that emotionally all the time. Like I think the funniest people I know are death studies scholars and death care workers. Yeah, because nothing is off limits, because why would it be off limits when it's your day job? And then everything is funny. Like everything is funny.
Speaker 1And it's look, it's a bit's look there are no taboos.
Speaker 2you can talk about anything. Yeah, it's a little bit of a liability when you're out, like at a public restaurant or a bar or a cafe, you're just trying to talk about a fat fire or like a grave collapsing or like a punch up at a funeral or whatever it is. Yeah, all of which you know are part of the job, but having you know, having some pragmatism and having a good sense of humor, I think, are things that allow people to do this work, which is really important actually.
Speaker 1Brilliant, that's great. I mean, just as we sort of wrap up here what kind of final word. I mean it doesn't matter if you're baby boomer or you're Gen X, millennial, gen Z? What kind of final piece of advice would you give to people about death or death care or the industry, or just about? Just a quick meaning of life, wrap up yeah, just wrap up with a quick, just just sum it up for us in two sentences.
Living with Uncertainty and Death Plans
Speaker 1No, I'm just joking um I'm just curious, you know, because it's something we did look at on the abc show. I mean, the the fun of that documentary was kind of just. I mean, if you had to sum it up into a single phrase was be prepared, but I wonder what your thoughts are on it.
Speaker 2I think it's not be prepared is good, but I think it is actually to not hold on too tightly to anything. Right, like don't have a plan, have preferences, whatever it is, but like being with death is fundamentally learning to be with uncertainty. Right, we don't know when it's going to happen. It might happen tomorrow, who knows it's going to where? When all these kind of things. It's a practice in like just being okay with uncertainty, and so preparation is great.
Speaker 2Talking to people is better. Like having your own plans is great. Talking to somebody about those plans is even better. And then the final thing is just find a way to make that conversation fun. So, like find an in you know, scattering your ashes at a famous football ground or cricket ground, or if it's like what would be the best playlist or best last meal, or whatever it is. Find an in to start that conversation. Because I think, as we've discussed, like the cocktail party effect, the Uber driver if you do start the conversation and stay, you study death. Then often you can have a really great conversation. Um, but you just kind of have to be a little courageous to start yeah.
Speaker 1Speaking of which, what are your death plans?
Speaker 2you must be well prepared um, I mean, they do change quite frequently. I have taken I mean I have a kind of standing agreement with Shane at Lidl Cemetery that if he is still working when I die he will cremate me. He's a lovely human being. I think he'd be a good person. I will probably. I don't live near the body farm so I probably can't donate my body to a body farm science.
Speaker 2But you know, take all my organs take 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's anything useful, people can take that and do good with it. And yeah, cremate me, I don't mind where I am, do something fun. I and yeah, cremate me, I don't mind where I am, do something fun.
Speaker 1I did notice in the corner of your office. There you've got what's that. You can see the coffin In the corner of your office.
Speaker 2So, okay, this is the. I know empty shelves, which is really embarrassing for a scholar, but there's a reason there's empty shelves. And that is because this is my coffin. This is the coffin that I will be probably cremated in.
Speaker 1Look, they're probably cremated in. Look at that. So hannah's getting in the coffin. 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 2So 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 and they add kind of how they feel about learning about death, and they've added memorials to people they know who have loved to have died, and there's religious texts from all different religions. And I started doing this a while ago when I was teaching death, and then I thought, well, it would be a shame to waste it when I go, so it's just become my coffin. This is the coffin I will be buried in, and I often think you know, save you money.
Speaker 1Great, I love it. It looks great.
Speaker 2Yeah, some nice drawings on there. Yeah, it's great. And then every year students can add more and eventually it'll just be, you know, not some small part of me, it'll be. You know, all of my students I ever taught will be part of my death, which I think is quite nice.
Speaker 1Brilliant, my coffin. That's great. You've got your coffin all ready to go.
Speaker 2Yeah, always prepaid. You know, no, I just some mates gave me that I didn't even pay for it. It's a free coffin. I was like, wow, I'll take that one.
Speaker 1Thanks, anna. So before the end of these chats I always like to ask if anyone has anything to plug or any socials or anything to tell people about pluggity time.
Speaker 2The exciting thing that I have coming out is I have finally written a popular book about death and dying and it is out next year, so you'll have to wait a little bit. But it's out in 2026 with Jameson Hudson and it is called how to Die in the 21st Century Lessons in Mortality.
Speaker 1What's it about?
Speaker 2It's about six lessons in how to die and how death and dying has changed in the 21st century and therefore, like, what does that mean for when we, you know, do a funeral or cremate someone, and what does that mean for grief and how to approach that? So it's kind of a how-to guide for death but for life. Yeah, you know, know, uplifting oh yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1All right, well, um once we have more information about that, um I'll post it on socials and put in the link and all sorts of stuff, and you let us know um fantastic. Do you have social media or do you got a website?
Speaker 2I always like yes. So, um, if people would like to follow up with me and follow what I'm doing and publications and future books and, I don't know, podcasts, musical theatre one day, who knows?
Speaker 1Media appearances. You do a few of those every now and then.
Speaker 2Media appearances, lots of TV. They can just go to hannahgouldcom.
Speaker 1That's me.
Speaker 2I exited all other social media because I kept reminding myself that I was going to die, and so I thought I should stop wasting time on it.
Speaker 1It's probably very healthy.
Speaker 2Yeah, just remember, you're going to die everyone. It's fine, you'll be fine, it's fine.
Speaker 1Nothing you do about it.
Speaker 2We're all going to die Live with it.
Speaker 1Yeah, just live with the fact that you're going to die.
Speaker 2Yeah, fact that you're going to die. Yeah see, sounds easy, pretty tough, we'll get there bro hannah gould, thank you so much for taking the time. Lovely to speak with you.
Speaker 1Thank you for having me so lovely to speak to you. All right, we'll catch you soon. And that is it for this week's episode. Um, I want to say a massive thank you to Hannah for taking the time to share her experiences with us and a huge thanks to you all as well for listening. For photos, links and more about this episode, please head to noordinarymondaycom and look for the episode page. You can also find information on our socials via Linktree. Our handle is NoOrdinaryMonday.
Speaker 1If you have questions or want to share your own career story with us, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch via our socials. You can also email hello H-E-L-L-O at NoOrdinaryMondaycom or you can use the submit your your Story page on our website. And if you enjoyed this episode, please do two really quick things for us Give us a five-star rating and review and tell a friend. It really helps us grow the show and attract more amazing guests and inspire new listeners. The next episode will be a brilliant two-parter. I speak to Tony Bonner, a former trauma nurse who was one of the first at the scene at the infamous Lockerbie bombing in 1988. It's a really fascinating and actually really well told story, so you don't want to miss it. So please subscribe and be the first to get new episodes. This show is produced, hosted and edited by me, chris Barron. Thank you so much for listening and have a great Monday everyone.
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