Changes are happening fast in Korea, even in such tradition-bound areas as funeral culture. In 2000, only about one-third of the dead were cremated; now more than 70 percent of families choose not to bury the dead in tombs. They extend their funeral period by one or two days to secure a slot in the crematorium operated at full capacity.

High expenses for burial with limited availability of cemetery spaces and the posterity’s uncertain prospect for properly taking care of the ancestors’ tombs are turning people to cremation. The rapid rise of cremation, however, has not been accompanied by the increase of crematoriums nationwide, causing growing difficulties in funerals. Projects to build crematoriums face strong resistance from residents who regard them as unpleasant facilities. Even construction of charnel houses meets similar repercussions from residents.

Seoul’s second crematorium in Wonji-dong at the southern boundary of the capital city opened last week, 14 long years since the project was conceived by City Hall. Successive mayors made extraordinary efforts to persuade residents of the area who would allow no funeral busses to pass through their village and no chimney to rise over it. Finally, the capacity of the crematorium was reduced by half to 11 furnaces and the entire process went underground using high technology. A new approach road was built and nearby residents were given the vending machines business inside the crematorium.

If Seoul set the example of resolving the cremation problem, at such a high cost, situations in other large cities and remote inland areas remain difficult. Families have to drive funeral buses long distances to go to crematoriums available. Daegu City with a population of 2.5 million has only one obsolete crematorium with 11 furnaces which was built 50 years ago.

What is most desirable is that local autonomous governments at provincial and metropolitan levels draw up crematorium projects for all their districts instead of leaving them up to individual county offices. Many elected county and city mayors are reported to be promoting separate projects, which could result in excessive availability of facilities in the future.

As many local officials and resident leaders as possible need to make tours to the new crematorium in Seoul and the Eunhasu Memorial Park in Sejong administrative city to have the right vision of what is necessary for their communities.