Traditional Korean-style Funeral Service

I just got back from Anmyeon-do, Chungnam Province, after attenting a funeral service for one of my wife's relatives who was 91 years old. The funeral service was prepared generally by traditional style, including using an old Korean-style bier or a flower-decorated death carriage to a tomb located at their (ancestral) family graveyard at the skirts of a mountain near the village as shown on the photo. In fact, it's not easy nowadays to witness this kind of old-fashioned funeral service across the nation, especially in a big city like Seoul or Incheon, though it could not be something like 'once in a lifetime event'.

In Korea, generally, a funeral service is progressed for three days (two nights) after an announcement of death. Therefore mourners should make a condolatory call during this period of time, and condolence visits are made normally from early in the evening to midnight as bereaved families are standing at the side of the coffin. In Korea, in most cases, the coffin cover is not opened to mourners to show the face of the dead. Many relatives and close friends of bereaved families, however, stay overnight at the funeral home with the bereaved to express their sympathy as talking about the life of the dead while drinking Soju or playing cards. Early in the morning of the 3rd day, the corpse is finally carried to its burial site. Sometimes a brief farewell rite is progressed on the street in front of the house in which the dead person lived before the death en route to the graveyard.