North Korea’s order to remove hillside graves and cremate remains has led to a decline in traditional Chuseok cemetery visits, with many families opting for ancestral rites at home instead.
“Many Hyesan residents who lost their ancestral graves due to a government order conducted jesa at home this Chuseok,” a source in Ryanggang province told The Daily NK recently, referring to traditional ancestral rites. “(Most people) were happy to hold their ancestral rites at home instead of in the mountains.”
The North Korean government has taken steps to remove mountainside graves and cremate remains, ostensibly to restore mountain forests. Most people have removed their ancestors’ graves from the mountains, with the authorities warning that they would deal with the graves themselves if families did not comply.
At first, many people were unhappy about this. Some people had paid fortune tellers to help them choose burial sites, or had deliberately moved their ancestors’ graves, believing that placing the graves in auspicious locations would bring good fortune to the family.
People half-heartedly carried out the order, fearing that removing the graves of their ancestors would bring misfortune, and because of the considerable economic burden of cremating the remains. But even the holdouts who stood firm in the face of repeated warnings and demands from the authorities have mostly complied, the source said.
Home-based ancestral rites gain favor among many
Now, people are welcoming the fact that they can no longer perform jesa on the hillsides where the graves have been removed, and must instead perform it at home.
“People say that doing jesa at home is much more convenient than the old way, when they had to go to the hillsides to do it,” the source said. “People who couldn’t prepare much food for the jesa often felt uncomfortable because of the stares of people at neighboring graves, but now they don’t have to worry about that.”
In particular, people who lived far away from their ancestors’ graves used to have a hard time getting up at dawn to do their jesa and coming back. Now, however, they feel much less burdened because they can do the ancestral rites at home.
“Wealthy households prepare various foods such as meat, fish, and fruit, while poor families try to hold the best jesa they can, even if they cannot prepare different kinds of food,” the source said. “People say they feel better doing the ancestral rites at home because they can prepare food without worrying about what others think.”
According to the source, a man in his 40s in Hyesan said he removed his father’s grave and cremated the remains after the authorities told him in the spring of last year that they would treat the grave as an ownerless grave unless he removed it himself. “However, since I have been holding jesa at home since this year, it’s nice that I no longer have to bring food to a grave 20 li (around 5 miles) away,” the man said.
He added, “Every time we held a jesa, we felt terrible because other families brought lots of food, but we couldn’t afford it, so we prepared only meager offerings. But we feel much better now that we no longer have to worry about that.”
Because of this atmosphere, even the last holdouts in Hyesan who refused to remove their ancestors’ graves are beginning to comply.
The Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
September 26, 2024 at 06:00AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)