My Condolences

This weekend, my director's mother passed away after a long battle with cancer and so yesterday, my co-workers and I went to pay our respects. It was the first, and hopefully only, funeral/memorial service I've attended in Korea and, as with weddings here, distinctly Korean. The "reception" (which is the best word I can find to describe it) was held at the hospital where she had died. As near as I could figure, the bottom floor of the hospital has an entire wing devoted to funerary receptions, and Mr. Park's family had one of the many small rooms reserved for his mother. Visitors lined up outside the room and waited their turn to enter. Inside, there was a display with floral arrangements (which looked exactly like those used at grand openings for businesses in Korea, except that the flowers were all white and not pink), a photograph of his mother, burning incense, and several dishes of fruit like dried persimmons and dates arranged on a sort of altar. Mr. Park, his elder brother, and his eldest brother-in-law stood on one side of the room dressed in black suits, greeting the visitors from the far side of a rattan-like mat in the middle of the floor. We each took a white flower from a vase on the floor (I'm not sure what flower it was exactly, but it certainly wasn't a lily) and then placed them on the altar next to the pot of incense. Afterwards, there was a short moment of silence and then we lined up across from Mr. Park, knelt and bowed our heads to the ground, as did he. Finally, we deposited our envelopes full of money into a wooden box below the altar, contributions for the bereaved. There were also beige-colored armbands with a thin black stripe running through them for the family members to attach to their suits, but of course my co-workers and I didn't don them. Outside of the room there was food available for the visitors (what looked like samgyeopsal and soju), but we didn't partake and made our exit, after getting our parking tickets validated. As with Korean weddings, the only other family-oriented ceremony I've attended in Korea, it was a hasty affair but deeply significant for all those involved. All in all it was a very somber time, but I hope that Mr. Park can take some solace in the fact that his mother's suffering is over and she is at peace now.