Modest funeral
The late LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo, who passed away Sunday after a year-long illness, was laid to rest Tuesday after his body was cremated and his ashes were buried under a tree according to his wishes.
The business tycoon of the nation’s fourth-largest conglomerate, respected as a successful corporate leader and a man of integrity, dignity and benevolence, impressed the people anew by refusing life-sustaining medical support and wishing for a modest funeral.
According to his wishes, his bereaved family did not receive condolence wreaths, mourners and condolence money and held the funeral privately “not to cause inconvenience to others” as he asked.
The late Koo showed how Korea’s traditional funeral culture should change in the days to come to protect nature in this “small” country with 70 percent of the land being hills and mountains and to reduce funeral expenses.
Korea’s funeral culture used to highlight a binge-like mourning at a reception hall of the hospital where mourners are offered food and drinks, including soju and beer, which are almost the same everywhere because they are supplied by professional caterers.
Most mourners visit the halls in the evening after work, put an envelope containing money into a box at the reception desk, bow or pray in front of a portrait of the deceased, offer condolences to the bereaved family members and enter the next room to mingle with other mourners over a meal.
The condolence money is 50,000 won to 100,000 won on average, which could be burdensome to ordinary people, who have to attend other funerals several times a month, in particular.
And the funeral business is a good source of income for hospitals, particularly for big ones. The number of condolence wreaths and mourners definitely depends on the social status of the deceased and his or her children.
An “incredible” and “ridiculous” scene at a memorial hall for dead people whose sons are in the upper class of society as high-ranking officials or business tycoons would feature hundreds of long white name ribbons hung on the walls. They were taken from the wreaths of flowers, which could not be displayed due to the lack of space.
Only those sent from “important” figures are qualified to stand inside or outside the memorial halls.
Korean funeral culture has so far encouraged waste and this has been excused as a result of “established social mores and customs,” dotted, of course, with funeral merchants’ profiteering.
In fact, it has been taboo in Korea to question funeral practices and this impeded reform of the culture in the much-touted era of globalization.
It is also a time-honored tradition for the mourners to ask the bereaved families very cautiously, “Where is the burial site?” This means that the body of the dead is to be buried and a grave is to be built.
If given a chance to look down on the suburban areas of the capital city from a helicopter, one would be astonished to see that mountains and hills are pockmarked with legal or illegal tombs.
A small bowl-shaped mound of earth, covered with well-cultivated grass and half-encircled by a wall, used to be the typical grave of ordinary Koreans. The greater the dead person’s wealth and social status, the higher their earthen grave mounds and the larger their graves tend to be.
Fortunately, however, funeral culture has undergone a notable change over the past two decades as an increasing number of people, especially leading figures from various walks of life, now prefer cremation to burial.
As many people remember, the late SK Chairman Chey Jong-hyun (1926-1998) was a pioneer to encourage cremation instead of burial. Meeting his fate calmly at home after refusing anti-cancer treatments for his lung cancer, his wish was to be cremated.
The cremation rate in the year of 1998 when Chey died was only 27 percent and it soared to 30 percent the following year. Now it is more than a whopping 80 percent.
The momentum for the basic change of our traditional funeral culture has been provided. In particular, leading figures of our society should follow suit.
To recall, 22 years ago in 1996, Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital took the lead in “righting the wrongs of Korean funeral culture” by opening the Yonsei Funeral Center, banning food and drinks there to ensure a “solemn” atmosphere to look back on the deceased.
The hospital also banned mourners from staying at the mortuary after midnight and ran a restaurant to help the bereaved reduce the amount they spend on food and drinks served to visitors.
The then director of the hospital, Dr. Kim Il-sun, had said that the ban on traditional practices would possibly lead to complaints in the short term, but that the move was needed to correct them and end excessive spending by bereaved families.
However, Yonsei’s “adventure” ended up a failure after a few years and the hospital returned to the previous service, unfortunately, as other big hospitals did not follow suit.
The late Koo revived the opportunity for the reform of the deep-rooted practices. He showed himself how our funeral culture should change. A small funeral like that of the late tycoon is the call of the time.