Normally, funerals are held to bid a last farewell to the dead but in South Korea, they are being used as a way to celebrate life.
Hyowon Healing Center, a funeral company based in Seoul, has been arranging funerals for the living since 2012, Reuters report.
Watch this unique ceremony below.
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According to the company, mass funerals for the living can be used as an effective way to improve the lives of people.
Seventy-five-year-old Cho Jee-hee, who recently participated in one such funeral as a part of his program at an adult welfare center, told Reuters: “Once you become conscious of death, and experience it, you undertake a new approach to life.”
In these funerals for the living, scores of people of all ages, from school-going teens to senior citizens dress up like the dead, take funeral pictures and write their wills.
The ceremony ends with the ‘dead’ people lying in closed coffins for 10 minutes.
Twenty-eight-year-old Choi Jin-kyu said that lying in the coffin helped him look at life from a new perspective. Choi, a university student, told Reuters: “When I was in the coffin, I wondered what use that is.”
Jeong Yong-mun, the leader of Hyowon Healing Center, said that his company started the mass funerals for the living people to make people look at their lives from a different angle, appreciate all the good things they have, forgive people, ask for forgiveness and give time to people who matter in their lives.
“We don’t have forever… That’s why I think this experience is so important — we can apologize and reconcile sooner and live the rest of our lives happily,” said Jeong.
According to the Korea Herald, suicide was the major cause of death among Korean youth in 2017. Unfortunately, it has been so since 2007.
Jeong says the mass funerals for the living have played a big role in stopping a number of people from ending their own lives.
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