After solemnly reading their wills, seven perfectly healthy university students climb into caskets in a dimly lit hall.
"I want to give all of you one more day to live, but it's time to be placed into coffins," a man in a black suit says in a resounding voice. "I hope your tired flesh and bodies will be peacefully put to rest." Workers nail the coffins shut, then sprinkle dirt on top as the lights are switched off and a dirge is played. Muffled sobs can be heard from some of the coffins. About 15 minutes later, they are opened and the five men and two women are "reborn." The mock funeral, which aims to get participants to map out a better future by reflecting on their past, is part of a new trend in South Korea called "well-dying." The fad is an extension of well-being, an English phrase adopted into Korean to describe a growing interest in leading healthier, happier lives.
"I felt really, really scared inside the coffin and also thought a lot about my mom," said Lee Hye-jung, a 23-year-old woman studying engineering. "I'll live differently from now on so as not to have any regrets about my life." Other well-dying activities focus on death itself. Web sites store wills to be conveyed to relatives after death. Death coordinators help plan funerals in advance in case of unexpected death.
Experts see the well-being and well-dying trend as a sign that South Koreans have grown affluent enough to be able to consider quality-of-life issues. But some dismiss services such as the fake funerals as moneymaking ventures.
Korea Life Consulting Co, which staged the mock funeral for the students, charges up to US$325 per customer.
"Real death is totally different than this," said Chung Jae-hyun, a board director at the Korea Association of Thanatology, a Seoul-based group of academics who study death-related issues.
Some companies see the service as a way of improving job performance. Samsung Electronics Co sent 900 workers in 2006 from its factory in Gumi to the southeast of Seoul for sessions.
The experience makes workers more efficient, said Kim Hee-jin, a personnel manager at the Gumi plant, which makes mobile phones, computer printers and fax machines.
Korea Life Consulting held the students' funeral at a mountain resort in Chungju, 150km south of Seoul. Photos of celebrities who died prematurely, including Princess Diana and former US president John F. Kennedy, were hung on the walls.
The students donned a traditional garment for the dead, made from hemp. One worker wore a black robe and a wide-brimmed cylindrical hat, the outfit of a death messenger in Korean folklore.
Participants take a class on the meaning of life, pose for portrait photos to be used at the service and write wills as if they have three days to live.
"Mom and Dad! Everything I have now is from you, your teaching and your love. I'm so sorry that I have to leave you behind," said Hwang Yun-jin, a 29-year-old mechanical engineering major, crying as she read her will aloud.
Ko Min-su, who hosted the ceremony and heads Korea Life Consulting, said about 50,000 people have taken part in his fake funerals since they began in 2004. Most are in their 30s and 40s.
His company has eight offices around the country, and copycats have sprung up.
"To die well, we should live well," he said. "Many participants cried while reading their wills, which means they felt they had much to regret." Ko, a 40-year-old former insurance agent, launched the business after realizing the fragility of life following the deaths of his two older brothers in a plane and a car accident.
"Everyone can die unexpectedly," he said.
Exceptions to the rule are sometimes revealing. For a brief few years, there was an emerging ideological split between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that appeared to be pushing the DPP in a direction that would be considered more liberal, and the KMT more conservative. In the previous column, “The KMT-DPP’s bureaucrat-led developmental state” (Dec. 11, page 12), we examined how Taiwan’s democratic system developed, and how both the two main parties largely accepted a similar consensus on how Taiwan should be run domestically and did not split along the left-right lines more familiar in
This month the government ordered a one-year block of Xiaohongshu (小紅書) or Rednote, a Chinese social media platform with more than 3 million users in Taiwan. The government pointed to widespread fraud activity on the platform, along with cybersecurity failures. Officials said that they had reached out to the company and asked it to change. However, they received no response. The pro-China parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), immediately swung into action, denouncing the ban as an attack on free speech. This “free speech” claim was then echoed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
As I finally slid into the warm embrace of the hot, clifftop pool, it was a serene moment of reflection. The sound of the river reflected off the cave walls, the white of our camping lights reflected off the dark, shimmering surface of the water, and I reflected on how fortunate I was to be here. After all, the beautiful walk through narrow canyons that had brought us here had been inaccessible for five years — and will be again soon. The day had started at the Huisun Forest Area (惠蓀林場), at the end of Nantou County Route 80, north and east
Specialty sandwiches loaded with the contents of an entire charcuterie board, overflowing with sauces, creams and all manner of creative add-ons, is perhaps one of the biggest global food trends of this year. From London to New York, lines form down the block for mortadella, burrata, pistachio and more stuffed between slices of fresh sourdough, rye or focaccia. To try the trend in Taipei, Munchies Mafia is for sure the spot — could this be the best sandwich in town? Carlos from Spain and Sergio from Mexico opened this spot just seven months ago. The two met working in the
RSS