South Korea Conducting Funerals Of Its Living Employees – Appreciate Life By Being Shut Inside A Coffin?

Companies in South Korea are conducting funerals for employees while they are still alive and well. The bizarre experiment is to address the rising rates of suicides by helping the people appreciate life.

Healthy South Korean men and women, in traditional funeral dresses, are being asked to lie down in their own coffins and pretend to be dead. The companies in South Korea are desperately trying to stop people from committing suicide and think this is one of the ways to dissuade their employees and help them appreciate life.

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. According to a health report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED), an average of 29.1 South Koreans per 100,000 citizens commit suicide. While counseling, therapy, and other methods are routinely employed, South Korea is now trying a new, albeit seemingly morbid and depressing technique to address the high suicide rates.

Companies in South Korea are staging mock funerals of their own employees. Employees are asked to stage their own death during workshops organized in centers designed for the purpose. The entire exercise is completely conducted with seriousness and is replete with all the details observed at a regular funeral.

Employees, dressed in white robes, are asked to create and attest wills, compose their own farewells, and even write letters to their families while sitting at their desks, reported BBC News. These “final” letters do not have any strict format, but the employees are urged to express themselves. As expected, muffled sniffles slowly give way to open weeping. The funerals are conducted inside the offices, and each employee gets his or her personal coffin. There is a short speech about suicide followed by an emotional film about the topic.

Though not ornate, once the lights are dimmed, each employee stands over the wooden coffin laid out beside them and slowly lowers themselves in and lies down. As an added measure, each of them hugs a picture of themselves draped in black ribbon. These photos are quite similar to the ones that are enlarged and placed near coffins during funerals. Employees have to spend about 10 minutes in the closed coffin.

Once inside, the boxes are actually banged shut by a man dressed in black with a tall hat. He represents the Angel of Death, come to take away their soul and leave the body inside the coffin. Except this time, the South Koreans are very much alive, forced to reflect on the meaning of life and hopefully decide to live.

French photographer Françoise Huguier photographed them this year at the Hyowon Healing Center in Seoul, South Korea, reported CNN. The center is meant to be a place where small groups of people can come to “experience death” by acting out their own funerals. As expected, the majority of the attendees are struggling with depression, stress, or suicidal thoughts. Interestingly, there isn’t any additional mental health treatment that follows the mock funerals, but Huguier said many participants strongly believe the process will make them feel better.

The “experimental death in order to better appreciate life” experience has had varying results, but most of the employees confirmed that no psychologist will offer this. Some experts reason that the mock funerals work because the employees are sharing an experience about death and yet stay alive to experience and discuss it, offering a sense of relief and wellbeing. Others claim that being inside the coffin acts as a reset switch for the mind to begin life afresh with a new attitude, reported MSN.

While many in South Korea dismiss the mock funerals as a scam to make money, suicide remains the first cause of death among young people in South Korea and is higher than deaths by traffic accidents.

[Photo by Françoise Huguier/Agence VU]