Itaru Sasaki who lives in Otsuchi Japan installed this booth a year before the 2011 tsunami disaster. He had just lost his cousin and was looking for a way to talk to him about his grief. Otsuchi still has 421 missing, lost in the 2011 tsunami.
The phone is not connected but people, entire families, come to speak to their missing or deceased loved ones.
Listen to this moving story from NPR This American Life, the phone booth is the first part of this segment 597: One Last Thing Before I Go narrated by Miki Meeks.
sanseilife 
Reblogged this on Praying for Eyebrowz and commented:
How beautiful. From my friend at sanseilife.wordpress.com
Thank you Leslie!
Thank You!
You are nominated for this challenge:
paintdigi.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/creativity-challenge/
Incredibly moving, thx I had heard it.
The following link may be of interest to you, as it discusses the US internment of Japanese Americans, a subject I am not as familiar with as the Canadian (BC) accounts.
https://www.wnyc.org/story/american-pendulum-fred