A visit to Mok In Warehouse _ a history class on tradition

Covid 19 made us take it easy and slow down, but can't make us stop learning. On Tuesday, April 27th, 16 members got together on snickers and went up to Mok In Warehouse which is located right underneath Inwang Mountain. . Mok In means an ornament for bier. Bier?  You might wonder. It's a tool carrying a corpse of the deceased and is called Sang-Yeo.  The shape of Sang-Yeo is similar to palanquin. In the case of kings and nobles, they usually burn Sang-Yeo after using it, which is different from common people. Because it took a lot of time and money to make Sang-Yeo, common people prepared it by each village or family, stored in a Sang-Yeo house and shared. Wooden Sang-Yeo was replaced by flower one and has become increasingly difficult to find due to rural to urban migration caused by industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s.     

Ancestors of Korea considered Sang-Yeo a place and border where the deceased temporarily stays between this life and afterlife.  Therefore, the shape is like a traditional house. It contains the wish of bereaved families that they want to take care of the deceased in the luxurious house in the last moments of life at least. Bier ornament was believed to play the role of taking the deceased to afterlife safe and sound. 

Wooden figures such as human figures, dragons, phoenixes, flowers and goblins were attached to the front and the sides of Sang-Yeo.

The director of the warehouse gave us the tour and 2 hours of walking around went so fast.