1. What are the major Japanese funeral and burial customs? What religions and social codes dictate these customs? How has the modern world changed them?

Is cremation as common in the U.S. as in Japan? Why or why not?

2. Do you think Americans have an easier time dealing with the death of relatives than do the modern Japanese children in this book? Pick two religions prac180 The Friends ticed by Americans and look at their funeral customs. Them compare them to Buddhism as practiced today in Japan.

3. K-12 educational systems around the world are based on very different models, and the Japanese system is largely based on the English education system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. What are some major differences between American and Japanese systems of public education?

4. All three boys are studying at cram schools...