South Korea is seeing a steady increase in cremation by 2.5% every year, since cremation rate surpassed 50% in 2005. In 2014, the country wide rate for cremation reached up to 79.2% followed by approximately 1% increase in the following year. Today, cremation is widely recognized as the typical commemoration practice; most individuals identify a need for cremation except for ChoongNam, JeonNam and Jeju region where about 60% of the population practice cremation.
The study of "improving the employment of commemorating facilities for bereaved family" is based on the researcher's personal experiences while working around in South Korea's commemorating sites. The foremost intent of this research is to help the bereaved family bring together a cost reduction, psychological support, and feeling of kinship. In addition, the researcher seeks to increase the efficiency regarding the utilization of our national territory. Until now, domestic commemorating facilities have relocated the bodies after a certain period from the facilities depending on the bereaved families' customs, traditions, or their circumstances. Even though charnel houses and cemeteries have their respective strengths and effectiveness, they also have their shortcomings.
In order to help bereaved families to overcome their depression and return to their normal life, one needs to develop an idea that "death leads to a new start." For this ideas to persist, commemorating facilities need to find ways to provide the bereaved families with a psychological stability. The researcher believes that effective allocation of both Charnel house and cemetery will maximize our utility of our national territory. This is illustrated through three steps: 1) preserve the cremated bones of the parent in the charnel house. 2) Relocate cremated bones of the parent to cemetery upon child's death. 3) Replace the cremated bones of the child in place of his or her parents'.
Currently, about 80% of the bereaved families choose charnel house over cemetery. Despite different reasons and circumstances of these families, a major reason for its dominant choice rests in the idea of laying the cremated body where it is visible to commemorate and remember them.
In the midst of swift transition in our world, one needs to depart from the Chosun dynasty practice and adopt a modern commemorating practice. The three steps mentioned previously effectively helps utilize our land for burying the dead. Better utilization of our territory will also help educate our present and future generations regarding commemorating services. Education regarding death in commemorating facilities shouldn't be limited to academic understanding but it should comprise of realistic situations with scenarios.
The researcher looked into the origins of the commemorating services from the history of the Chosun dynasty for his "Study of an effective use of the national territory and better utilization of commemorating facilities for the bereaved family," A practice called "Four Generations Service" refers to a commemorating service of four generations in ancestral shrines to remember and pay respect for their wisdom. It is evident from this historical example that our ancestors' wisdom is still helping us navigate our lifestyles.
Funeral policy is part of welfare policy and hence must be available to the public with a general strategy. Funeral policy must be scrutinized carefully and account for the changes in law, social, environmental aspects from the consumers' point of view. The most important issue in Korea is to efficiently allocate our national territory for the commemorating sites. Funeral policy should also take into consideration of environmental damage from the reckless commemorating sites.
Therefore, this paper shows an increase of environmental friendly natural burial supporters after the national assembly passed a bill in 2007. However, considering that the majority of the bereaved families still prefer cremation burial method, combining the cremation and natural burial's positive attributes will help maximize our commemorating sites. In micro level it will help bereaved families to be cost effective and overcome the depression from a loss quickly. On the other hand, in macro scale it will lead us to effectively utilize our territory.