Welcome to the new Korean craze of “well-dying”. In a country infatuated with “well-being” – living and eating healthily, even to the point where tobacco-makers offer vitamin-enriched “well-being cigarettes” – training companies are now offering courses on dying a good death.
“Korea has ranked number one in many bad things such as suicide and divorce and cancer rates, so I wanted to run a programme for people to experience death,” says Ko Min-su, a 40-year-old former insurance agent who founded Korea Life Consulting, which offers fake funerals as a way to make people value life.
The rite is described as follows:
In front of an altar covered with flowers and his funeral portrait, Mr Ko instructs his trainees to choose a coffin, put on a traditional hemp death robe and then read out their wills one-by-one.
Next, it is time to be buried. Participants lie down in their coffins, while a man wearing the outfit of a traditional Korean death messenger places a flower on each person’s chest. Funeral attendants place lids on the coffins, banging each corner several times with a mallet. Dirt is thrown down on the lid, as loud as stones on a tile roof. The attendants leave the hall for five minutes – but it seemed like 30 minutes to those taking part.
Once the lids are lifted, Mr Ko asks the trainees how they felt. “When they were nailing the coffin and sprinkling the dirt, it felt like I was really dead,” Ms Baek says. “I thought death was far away but now that I have experienced it, I feel like I have to live a better life.”
I'm personally torn between thinking this is creepy and beautiful. However, the photo below (in which the participants are very much alive), does make me lean towards creepy. However, I suppose, anything that makes us put a higher value on life may be valuable on its own merits.
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