Funeral Rites in Contemporary Korea: The Business of Death

(2019, Springer)

Professor Gil-Soo Han

School of Media, Film and Journalism

Monash University

An ongoing debate in the midst of globalisation is about the meeting of Korean and non-Korean or Western traditions. What is the desirable direction—Westernisation, sticking to Korean traditions or incorporation of Western culture? Individuals have all the options available but their own ability to be reflective of their desires and making an informed decision about all the rituals in their life along the way might be what is required. Taking a chance to reflect on life and death myself, and sharing this chance with others has been my personal goal to achieve in this book. Indeed, the funeral rite is supposed to offer a valuable time for reflection, but its value is reduced in the current context of Korean society. Death is not far away from any living person and it is always near one’s doorstep. Those individuals and societies that can handle the idea of death in a mature way can perhaps handle funeral rites in a mature manner.

I was surprised to learn that every bit of activity in human life including the funeral rite is so tightly geared towards making a profit. Nonetheless, professionalisation ought to involve financial reward, competition and profit-making in the current economic context and I am not prepared to critique such economic exchanges under the currently prevalent modes of production, but the problem is about finding a balance between human dignity, professionalisation and profit-making. Outhwaite et al. (1996: 513) are clear about the nature of the funeral profession: ‘A central aspect of professions is that they are a means to make a living that is self-regulated through a professional code of ethics. Professions are also part of the institutional infrastructure of modern societies.’ Undoubtedly, ethical conduct on the basis of these principles is well understood, live and well in the minds of most funeral professionals and in their practices. A mission is to have more of them accept such ethical conduct and to embed it in their everyday service for mourners.

I was also surprised to learn that full-body burial, not cremation, is the most environmentally friendly method of disposing of the dead. I have taken it for granted for years that cremation is the most desirable method everywhere. I have been uncritically influenced by the prevalent and popular ideas from a particular place. There is a chance that there are many other matters that are taken for granted without scientific evidence or a required public decision. This raises the need to rethink the roles of the media, intellectuals, social commentators and politicians in particular as they have a duty to inform the public.

I have also discovered many positive movements around the business of death. However, the slow pace of improvement is obvious and the same type of problems are prevalent and continue to be repeated. Korean society needs to continue to debate the best ways in which funeral rites can be most meaningfully observed with reasonable costs. For example, in the fast-ageing Korean society, the chief mourner could be aged well over 70. The chief mourner’s traditional way of bowing and expressing respect to the visitors (i.e., mutual bowing in a Korean traditional way, kneeling on the floor) could damage his knee-caps. In the past, the acquaintance’s visiting and paying a tribute to the dead in the funeral hall was considered important, but it is not so any more. That is, utilitarianism is not only an important matter, but being considerate of others’ needs should also be taken into consideration. In this process, the concept of filial piety and how it could be practised in contemporary society ought to be reconsidered. I have argued that the reason to give serious thought to open discussion about death is that we want to value our life and try living a worthwhile life. I found the Chinese immigrants in Australia are generally open to discussing their own death and funeral, although they simultaneously remain deeply reserved in openly discussing and questing for the meaning of life. It is safe to argue that South Koreans are much the same.

Hurh Dae-Seok, a professor of medicine, touches on the sensitive topic of euthanasia in his empirically based book, In Order to Make our Death a Life. This opens the debate about making informed decisions on the treatment of disease and life support, which will then improve the quality of death. This is a good start to the public debate on preparing for death and there needs to be more. It will improve the quality of death and life.

A specific question that started this book project was a feature of the funeral industry in Korea. However, the fundamentally underpinning query was my ongoing quest for the understanding of a Korean society that has gone through rapid and unprecedented political and economic change over the last several decades. The broader question which we ought to think about with reference to ritual, capitalist development and modernisation is: what kind of society should we build or move towards? The ongoing debate about human understanding of duties, goals, values and how we find a balance between them is relevant here.

However, in the contemporary world, humans are preoccupied with strategic and instrumental methods to accomplish their goals. Whether those strategies and chosen methods are pertinent or not is not necessarily a primary and ethical concern. Humans have always been pulled between ethics/pertinence/rightness on the one hand and desirability/convenience on the other. Ignoring ethics and pursuing desirability will lead us to hedonism, ignoring desirability and pursing rightness will lead us to asceticism.

The Korean economic growth has not necessarily been based on western society’s rationality-based utilitarianism, but on irrationality-based utilitarianism. Rather, blood-based networks, academic elitism and regionalism surpass utilitarianism. Kim Seok-Su is precise in pointing out that the prevalent utilitarianism in Korea is no more than irrational utilitarianism: ‘Pariah capitalism (천민자본주의) and pariah democracy (천민민주주의) are dressed in morality and prevalent in the Korean society’ (p.132). The commodification of funeral rites is not a problem, but an excessive commodification is.

The question of modernity in progress is at the heart of what has initiated this book project. The notion that Korean society is in transition has been pronounced for the last few decades. Intellectuals question why the Republic of Korea as an OECD member country has the socio-economic features that may be commensurate with developing countries. Fraudulent business behaviours and unprofessional approaches towards clients discussed in the book are examples. Undoubtedly, many problems will be rectified over the years and the extent of the problems could be redressed. Nonetheless, one should not forget that all the OECD nations or the popular contests for ‘the best place to live’ have their own problems and pose their own unique flaws and challenges. That is, even the most advanced nations and communities with civilian consciousness are full of irrational thoughts and behaviours. Individual agents may often be unaware of an irrational dimension of the activities and rituals they engage in, or may be limited in what they can do about these activities if they find them problematic.

This is in part due to the overwhelming dominance of the structure over the individual agents. Rational and irrational thoughts and behaviours coexist in all societies and are manifested differently depending on each society’s structural and cultural contexts. The location of funeral halls in hospitals is an example. In this respect, every society is in transition. In the globalised world, there are certain features in common wherever we go and the problems and concerns in those societies could be redressed, applying similar and common remedies. Also, there are problems that are place-specific and they might require more specific remedies.

Finally, this book project started with my interest about the treatment of the dead, but it turned out to be that the Korean public focus is not necessarily on the dead, but what live people do to the dead. The dead have no control over what is done to them. What is to be done over their dead body has to be requested while they are alive. Thus, funeral rites make a significant reflection of what a society is like and where it is going, that is, what kind of society the Korean people would like to build themselves. Thus, death is part of human life, not the last bit that one has to go through at the end of their own life. Moreover, this book has provided thorough critical reflection on Korean society in general and Korean funeral rites in particular. There are lots of practices that deserve critiques and reflection, but I have to point out I am convinced that many problematic funeral practices will partly remain, being only partly addressed. Overall, Korean society will move in positive directions and this is what it has displayed with many other problematic practices over the last several decades. The pace has been overly slow, but that is how the society moves forward.