As he starts to claw through the straw, his hand soon comes upon the defleshed skeleton of the mother. The son last saw his mother three years ago on her death bed. A prisoner inside a thicket of straw, she hasn’t seen sunlight in three years. He carefully lifts the mother’s remains out of the heap of straw. She can now leave her straw grave and be buried next to her husband who died before her.

'Chobun' means literally a 'straw grave.' A unique Korean burial custom has it that the body of a deceased person is not buried in the ground immediately, but is placed in a temporary grave similar to a thatch hut and is left there until it is completely defleshed. This makeshift straw structure is dismantled after two or three years, and the remains of the deceased are then given a proper burial.

Among the various objects inside the coffin is some money that is supposed to be used to cover travel expenses during her journey to the afterlife. Wedding documents such as the letter sent to her by his father, asking her hand, and the sajudanja (horoscopic readings) he sent to her family, now as the soon-to-be groom, are also found among them. Seeing these objects makes the son briefly pause as though plunged into the memories of his mother. Or is the sudden realization of the transience of life the cause of his pause?

[Interview]: If the site is well chosen, you get a clean skeleton. If not, the bones take on a blackish hue.

As is the case with burial sites, there are also more or less propitious sites for a chobun. The son has much fretted over his choice of site, as he needs to ensure that his mother's body becomes cleanly defleshed.

A chobun is generally set up at a place outside the village, which is not too far removed from the home of the surviving family members. Keeping the body of the deceased in close proximity to where people live may seem sacrilegious as this blurs the boundary between the world of the dead and the world of the living.

However, such a perception of death as not radically separated from life can also inspire us to appreciate and value the life we have.

The defleshed skeleton is carefully cleaned before burial. The bones are collected following a certain order and cleansed. They are then laid on the chilseongpan, a wooden board with seven holes, symbolizing the Seven Stars, and wrapped and tied using mulberry paper sheets and string.

According to records, this burial method was used mostly for children, people who died of epidemics, those who died away from their hometown or widows who were to be interred together with their husbands who deceased before them.

Once the bones of the deceased are cleaned, wrapped and bundled, a proper burial is given. The utmost care goes into cleaning and burying the defleshed skeleton, as these steps must be properly completed in order for the soul of the deceased to be reborn in paradise and for descendants to prosper.

[Interview]: They say that it is better to bury the body of the deceased after leaving it in a chobun for defleshing.…… This is the least we can do for our parents who did so much for us.

[Interview]: To think that this is what remains of my mother….I am really stunned and saddened. But what can I do now except see through this? I tell myself that I should make sure she goes to heaven by handling this properly.

In the morning of the following day, a gaetoje is held, which is the first step in the burial process. Gaetoje is the rite performed before digging a hole in the ground to warn the god of land. This rite is usually presided over by a geomancer. After the gaetoje, the geomancer determines the position of the grave and the orientation of the coffin, using a compass. The exact position of the grave is then marked by driving a stick into the ground.

After the coffin is interred, funeral streamers are placed on its lid.

Dirt is shoveled onto the coffin, and an earth mound is built over it.

In this area, spouses are customarily buried under two separate mounds, as this is believed to ensure the prosperity of descendants.

Next, they perform a rite called “pyeongtoje.” As the last ceremony held at the burial site, pyeongtoje is usually performed in a grand fashion.

Although this burial custom was once widespread and was practiced also in inland areas, chobun are today found only in places along the southwest coast and a handful of islands. Fewer and fewer people observe this custom due to its high costs as well as the preference for a simpler burial process.

It is inevitable that certain customs fall out of use in time. The extinction of customs and traditions is especially tragic if human sentiments that inspired them and were expressed through them vanish along with them.