Verified by 
This post was co-authored with NaYeon Yang, a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at The University of Maryland. NaYeon researches grief.
Minho recently went to his close friend’s funeral in Virginia. As a first-generation Korean immigrant in the United States, he was surprised to see how his American friends openly talked about their friend’s unexpected death and their feelings around it. When he lost his father to cancer in South Korea, others avoided talking about the death. Instead, his family and friends gathered to spent time together more frequently, as if they were trying to comfort him with action rather than words. Minho’s experience reveals how culture impacts how we cope with grief.
The cultural difference in dealing with grief across Western and Eastern cultures is particularly glaring at funerals. In the US, families and friends gather together and share their words about the deceased through eulogies. Families, friends, and neighbors provide tangible support, such as food or help with daily chores. In South Korea, on the other hand, no eulogies are shared at funerals; families stay at a funeral site for three days and greet visiting mourners. People mourn the deceased and sometimes wail, but they don’t look at or talk much about the deceased. Visitors provide condolence money, bow twice to the photo of the deceased and once to the mourners, and eat food provided by families. Pronouncements of grief are made through these ritualistic actions.
Asians and Asian-Americans rely on implicit social support – they get comfort from being around one another, without necessarily having to discuss their stressful experiences. European-Americans rely predominantly on explicit social support, actively sharing problems and requesting assistance. Research finds that when Koreans use explicit social support to cope with stress, though it increased their life-satisfaction, it also increased their shame and regret, perhaps because they were worried about disrupting the harmony of their relationships when talking about their stress. In another study, Chinese HIV positive patients experienced better mental health when they received this implicit social support (having positive social interaction with others) whereas explicit social support didn’t help them.
This research suggests, that when we’re helping our loved ones cope with grief, we should consider what they find most supportive. People in the Asian and Asian-American communities may prefer spending time with close others without talking about their grief, while people in the European-American community may feel more comfortable with explicit emotional support. Of course, these preferences will differ depending on whether our loved ones identify more with Western or Eastern cultures.
Grief is a universal experience that all of us will face, and yet how we cope with grief will differ depending on our culture. We need to be attuned to our loved ones’ unique experiences of grief so we can best support them.
