Death+Breathes+in+Culture



=**Introduction**=

Because death is unavoidable thing and must come to all individuals, humans have found how they treat death in peaceful and grieving way in order to comfort those who loved the one who is deceased. Even though death is universal thing that naturally follows births, I have tried to understand of death in sociocultural aspects and seen it on my own cultural perspective. Death is within one specific customs function that characterizes the unique manners in funerals. My articles focus on the farewell to death and its ceremony treated in South Korea, which has diverse social factors in funeral society.

South Korea’s funerary rites are more obligated to the bereaved to express negative emotions about the loved one’s death. Korean people attending in funerals grieve much more sadly and make an exaggerated behavior about the deceased, like wailing and shouting his/her name out, than do people from other countries. Because Koreans consider the coping with death in a specific manner, they express how they have loved the person who died and how pitiful they think of the unexpected death, then at this point they dissolve negative emotions caused by losses of the loved one. When people heard of someone’s death they attend to the funeral as soon as possible, regardless of early or late time, because Korean people believe it is “good manners” to express condolence for the dead and the bereaved. As manner of visiting funerals, people attending to the funeral with all black clothing would knock their heads three times, stand in front of the dead’s portrait-picture and bow slightly to his families.

=**Process of Funeral**= Beside all cultures have their own beliefs based on religions, traditions, or superstitious concepts especially Korean funerals are well-built system to condole for someone’s death.

The process of Korean funerals holds still a lot of traditional beliefs nowadays. However it is not totally old-beliefs and superstitions, rather the modern-traditional one that Korean people have collaborated traditional and modern styles on their own. One characteristic among them is a funerary photo-portraiture that carries the last moment of the dead person when she/he was alive. As visitors come in they generally make a deep bow in front of this picture of the deceased.

 

At the funeral, a shaman practices communication with spirits wandering in the funerals and believes that the spirit is going to rest in peace through his performance for comforting death. When the shaman starts to call a spirit by shouting her/his name out and dancing with the music, families and friends attending funeral begin to speak out the words comforting the spirit’s sadness and pray for him to enter the gate of heaven.



Another emergence of specialized funeral halls is run by commercial companies or religious organizations which has been legalized by government; additionally, the new styles of death practices begin with funerary building halls. Because Koreans have thought death away from their home is bad dying because the soul would go around on the earth to find the place or home to rest in a peace before leaving to heaven. For last twenty years, however, there have been changes of funeral practices as the western customs have entered through media after they had recovered the losses the Korean War left over.

The author, Soo-Young Kwon, found differences in manner of visiting funerals between Korean process and American one. He asserts, “The visiting lasts around 70 hours, that is, usually three days, and most condolers stay and eat and drink and sometimes play traditional card games for three days, day and night”, because people who loved the dead try to unaware a non-existence of the loved. As you follow this video, you would know how Koreans deal with death in a festive manner as Kwon states.

media type="youtube" key="2_OXFy1yxpY" width="560" height="315" align="center"

**References** Work cited:  @http://www.seoulsite.com/survival-faq/a-korean-funeral/ Are You Going To A Korean Funeral?. @https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_OXFy1yxpY&feature=youtu.be

@http://holykaw.alltop.com/tips-for-controlling-funeral-costs
Related articles:

Kim, Jeehey. “Korean Funerary Photo-Portraiture Vernacular Photographic Practice as parallax” Georgia State University. Vol.2 Issue 1. P.7-20. Jan 2009. Web March 2009.
==== Kwon, Soo-Young. "Grief Ministry As Homecoming: Framing Death From A Korean-American Perspective." Pastoral Psychology 54.4 (2006): 313-324. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 14 Feb. 2016. ====


 * BACKGROUND/HISTORY**

Throughout history, Korea has been known as one of the countries in the world where the death customs are treated respectfully in traditional ways. The process of burial practices are so well organized that it can be viewed from an outside, cultural perspective as art. Although attending funeral ceremonies may be looked at as the last moments to say goodbye to the deceased, Korea conveys special separations between the living and dead according to the methods they use to send off the loved in a positive manner, which would result in making the deceased's spirit proud and happy. Traditional death ceremonies date back to the early eras of Korea, such as the Koryeo and Choseon eras. These time periods span from years 300-1910 AD. Since then, Korea has been busy modifying and simplifying the death customs to more so modern methods.

Korea's death customs begin with maintaining the lost one's body in an appropriate fashion. This involves washing, grooming, and dressing the corpse into traditional funeral clothes made of hemp cloth. The hosts of the funeral would also dress in traditional hemp clothes to symbolize death. One practice is stuffing the corpse's mouth with rice and money to please the spirit. According to the time period, certain rituals were practiced and performed in order to satisfy the dead's spirit. By doing so, the spirit would look down upon his or her family friends contented and depart to the afterlife without any worries. Koreans also set up traditional foods with the deceased's name so that the spirit could eat before leaving the earthly realm. These death customs may involve carrying the casket down the streets to the burial sites with mournful singing along with shamans performing rituals at the grave sites to keep evil spirits away. Back then, Korean burials were molded into mounds instead of flattening the grass.


 * Image examples of what the Korean traditional funeral and burial looked like are linked below:**

@http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H9AHqulxp88/US9KfRGyCjI/AAAAAAAADZg/qJA3H8oppC8/s1600/funeral1.jpg @http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2730/1358/1600/hshd1802_132.jpg @https://www.dannycrichton.com/content/images/IMG_0365-1.jpg @https://jeffmelland.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/chs-001.jpg

Relatable wiki page: Cultural Customs Culture Home