A Lonely end for South Koreans who cannot afford to live or die
A friend of mine who knew I just returned from visiting my son in South Korea sent me this article. Then another friend who came over for dinner also shared this article with me so I decided to share it with all of you:
I think what is now happening in South Korea is mostly caused by the downturn in China which is affecting all of Asia either directly or indirectly. It's affect is similar to what happened in the U.S between 2007 or 2008 to around 2011 during the Great Recession then. So, even though we don't really feel it here in the U.S. much, what we went through China and South Korea and Japan and others are experiencing a similar thing now.
And Europe is still trying to recover from the Great Recessions affects on nations there too.
Parents along the way in South Korea have usually sacrificed a lot for their children's education along the way which is why South Korea has done so well. However, when China goes down like it has some now it affects everyone else in Asia too. So, as China goes to some degree all Asia goes too.
So, even though the Chinese aren't going to talk about stuff like this to some degree what is happening in South Korea is also to a greater degree likely happening in China too even though you probably won't hear much about it.
SEOUL,
South Korea — In a culture in which funerals are often lavish
three-day affairs with hundreds of guests, the recent funeral for Song
In-sik was modest at best. It had only one guest — an activist who
volunteered to hold a ritual for a person he had never met.
The
activist, Park Jin-ok, placed a table of fruit, dried fish and
artificial flowers before the refrigerated unit that held Mr. Song’s
remains in the morgue of Sungae Hospital in Seoul. He burned incense and
bowed, before the impatient mortuary director asked him to pack up and
leave.
Mr.
Song, 47, died in July; his body was found three days after his death,
decomposing in his rented room. He was lucky to get even a makeshift
funeral. A growing number of South Koreans are dying alone, with no
relative willing to claim their remains and perform a ritual Koreans
believe is essential to easing the deceased’s passage to the other
world.
The
surge in so-called lonely deaths — to 1,008 last year from 682 in 2011,
according to government statistics — provides a small but poignant
glimpse of how South Korea’s
long-cherished traditional family structure is changing. Though South
Koreans have mostly benefited from a strong economy in recent decades,
families have come under strain from economic and demographic upheaval.
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“Those
falling behind get increasingly lonely because, unlike the poor of the
old days, they see their communities destroyed for urban redevelopment,”
said the Rev. Kim Keun-ho, a Christian pastor who has been working
among Seoul’s dwindling hilltop slum neighborhoods, known as “moon
towns.” “The poor and old have nowhere to go.”
Mr.
Kim and other observers trace the problem to the Asian financial crisis
of the late 1990s, when lifetime employment, once a given in South
Korea, evaporated. Many who lost jobs then never recovered, as an
already fast-paced society got even more competitive.
Now
in their late 40s or older, some of these unfortunates are found
sleeping in cardboard boxes in Seoul’s subway stations or underpasses —
scenes reminiscent of the desperate years after the Korean War.
Their
fall symbolizes the crumbling of a Confucian social contract Koreans
have lived by for ages. Parents spent all their earnings for their
children’s success, and in return counted on their support in old age.
Now, many older Koreans find themselves without retirement savings or
children capable of supporting them.
On
the question of whether they had relatives or friends to depend on in
times of need, South Koreans ranked at the bottom of countries in the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to its
annual “How’s Life?” report, released in October. The social support was the lowest among South Koreans who were 50 or older.
“A
society that lets its poor and abandoned die alone and leave without a
funeral is itself dying at its heart,” said Mr. Park, whose organization
Nanum & Nanum is one of a handful of civic groups that hold simple
funerals for those who die alone. “They spend their last days fearing
their remains will be treated like trash.”
The
activists say that one of the greatest fears of the poor is to die
without being given a proper funeral — the ultimate sign of life on the
margins.
In
South Korea, a family’s standing in the community is measured and
flaunted during a loved one’s funeral, by how many guests honor the
invitation and how long they stay. Hundreds of relatives, friends and
former colleagues may show up at a funeral hall, bowing before the
deceased’s portrait, nestled in a bed of freshly cut white
chrysanthemums.
Guests
often sit on the floor, chatting — some lingering overnight — while the
family plies them with food and drink. Long lines of wreaths with silky
ribbons bearing their senders’ names spill out of funeral halls, and
guests often bring cash in envelopes to help the family with expenses.
The government tries to limit how much public servants can accept or
donate, fearing corruption.
But for poor South Koreans, such an event is out of reach. Some cannot even retrieve their relative’s body.
“Especially
in the case of elderly people living alone or the homeless, survivors
in the low-income class don’t claim the family member’s corpse because
of the economic burden of a funeral,” said Kim Jae-ho at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.
For
the past six years, Choi Jeong-woong, 71, a divorced Vietnam War
veteran, has lived alone in a $220-a-month flophouse — in the words of
Mr. Kim, the pastor, “the loneliest place in South Korea.” Many of the
residents there spend their last days in rooms so small they can fit
only a narrow bed. Mr. Choi said he had no relatives to hold a funeral
for him.
“I
used to catch up with friends from my Vietnam days,” said Mr. Choi,
whose hands shook badly. “I don’t anymore because I don’t like spilling
food in public.”
South
Korea has one of the fastest aging societies in the world, with those
65 or older now accounting for 13.1 percent of the population, up from
3.8 percent in 1980.
Caught off-guard, the government is scrambling to strengthen the social safety net, but benefits remain paltry.
The 2015 Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index,
released in October, measured the retirement income systems of 25 major
economies and ranked South Korea 24th, with only India ranked lower.
Last year, only 45 percent of South Koreans between 55 and 79 received
pensions; their monthly payout averaged $431, or 82 percent of the
minimum cost of living for a single person, according to government
data.
About
30 percent of older South Korean families have a monthly income below
the absolute poverty level. But they can get welfare only when they can
prove that their family is unwilling or unable to support them. Many
reject that option because they find it too embarrassing to reach out to
relatives they have not contacted for many years.
And
one out of every four elderly people in South Korea has depression,
according to a study published by the Korea Institute for Health and
Social Affairs in September. As a group, their suicide rate is double
the national suicide rate.
When
people die alone, the police try to locate relatives and determine
whether they will claim the remains — a process that can take months, as
it did in Mr. Song’s case — before cremation. In the same mortuary was
the body of a man discovered in his room two and a half years after he
hanged himself.
Fear
of such a fate bothered Ham Hak-joon, 87, whose small bus company went
bust during the financial crisis of 1997-98. He lives alone in a
$130-a-month rented room in a rundown neighborhood.
His burden was recently lifted when Nanum & Nanum agreed to hold his funeral.
“I
am prepared now, ready to die,” he said, his eyes fixed on a small
portable TV, one of his last connections to the broader world,
especially after his arthritic legs made it increasingly difficult for
him to venture out.
A version of this article appears in print on November 2, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Saying Goodbye, When No One Else Will. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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