Growing number of Koreans choose cremation over burial

Lee Jeong-kyu, a 60-year-old businessman, hopes to be cremated when he dies.

"I don`t like even the stuffy charnel house. I want my ashes to be scattered over a mountain," said Lee, whose late parents and brothers are buried at a family graveyard near his hometown in South Gyeongsang Province.

"Most of all, I don`t want my children living in Seoul to feel any burden of visiting me every holiday. My wife has the same opinion," he added.

A growing number of Koreans are choosing cremation over burial. According to data issued yesterday by the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, nearly six out of every 10 Koreans who died last year were cremated. The cremation rate for 2008 marked 61.9 percent, up from 27.5 percent 10 years ago.



"Over the years, the overall cremation system, including the modernization of related facilities, has improved, resulting in the surge of the nation`s cremation rate," said a ministry official. "And, more fundamentally, the nation`s demographic structure has changed along with a low birth rate, aging and the formation of nuclear families."

Largely affected by the traditional Korean belief that ancestors should be given due respect through a burial and regular gravesite visits, the cremation rate here was less than 20 percent in the early 1990s.

However, due to the nation`s lack of land for gravesites, people found it difficult to find a suitable location for burials and cremation gained attention as an alternative.

Cremations overtook burials in 2005. The ministry expects the nation`s cremation rate to surpass 70 percent within two to three years.

Despite the gradual change in people`s attitudes in the past years, experts now point out that the nation`s related infrastructure falls far behind the recent uptake of cremation.

"I`m sorry to say, but, frankly speaking, we are concerned now about the growing demand for cremation," said Park Tae-ho, director of the Korean Association for Funeral Culture Reform. Established in 1998, the group has led a national campaign promoting cremation.

The lack of cremation facilities is nationwide, but the shortage is most serious in the metropolitan areas. Nearly 25 million people, more than half the total population, live in those areas, but there is only one crematorium to cover the whole of Gyeonggi Province, Park said.

"Other countries such as Japan and France have prepared for the possible lack of cremation facilities since 10 to 20 years ago and currently have no problems in meeting the growing demand. However, I`m skeptical about the future situation of Korea," Park said.

Local governments have faced fierce opposition from residents in the building process of crematoriums. Even though the nation plans to install one crematorium for every 250 local governments, there are only about 50 facilities nationwide.

"People everywhere in the world would hesitate to accept crematorium into their residential area. That`s why more sincere efforts should be made by the government," Park said. "However, the Korean government has done almost nothing to tackle the situation. It should do more to stop surviving families fighting one another to use the scarce facilities."

(jylee@heraldm.com)







By Lee Ji-yoon