Amid rapid aging and recent crises, residents of Hong Kong are showing greater willingness to discuss mortality and even plan their own funeral wishes. Experts suggest that these changing attitudes reflect a deep social shift in confronting death.

Hongkongers are more willing to discuss death including their own funeral wishes in the wake of the Covid pandemic, mass emigration and the deadly Tai Po fire, amid a rapidly ageing population, a death education advocate says. Pasu Ng Kwai-lun, founder of Minimal Funeral and a practitioner of “life-and-death education”, said attitudes had changed and people had grown much more open to discussing death over the past five to 10 years. “People may not go as far as fully planning their funerals, but...