Veteran actress Kim Hye-ja paid an emotional visit to the funeral hall of Choi Bool-am in Seoul on October 30, telling reporters she does not think of his death as a final farewell. Speaking at the Asan Medical Center funeral hall in Songpa District, she said she believes they will meet again after death, and asked that people not call it the end.
Kim’s words carried special weight because of the screen partnership she shared with Choi. For 22 years, from 1980 to 2002, the two played a married couple in the long-running MBC drama Country Diaries, with Choi as Chairman Kim of Yangchon-ri and Kim as his wife. Their performances were so natural that generations of viewers came to think of them as a real couple, and the pairing helped make Choi known across Korea as a national father figure. Yonhap News reported her visit in a comprehensive report on the evening of October 30, with MK and Star News carrying the same remarks.
Kim told reporters she misses him deeply and expects to meet him soon, saying that how one looks at death changes whether it feels like an ending. She said she has many memories of him and will live remembering them all. The remarks echoed a reunion the two shared in 2023 on the tvN Story program People at the Chairman’s House, their first broadcast meeting in 21 years, when Kim said Choi had been her husband on screen and that everything about working with him had been good. She said then that she had been excited waiting for him, and that seeing him again felt like meeting an old friend.
Kim was not the only major figure to visit the funeral hall on the evening of October 30. Actors Youn Yuh-jung and Ko Du-shim also paid their respects, according to Financial News, which reported a steady stream of visitors from across politics, business and culture through the evening, the first full day of visitation. Chung Mong-joon, chairman of the Asan Social Welfare Foundation, visited at around 8 p.m., the report said. Star News reported that Kim Hye-soo stayed for a long time at the wake and left with swollen eyes, still in tears after her visit.
The evening wave followed a morning of condolences already reported earlier in the day, when former Culture Minister Yoo In-chon, actress Na Moon-hee and hanbok designer Park Sool-nyeo visited the same funeral hall. Yoo recalled a relationship that began at his own debut and ran through 22 years of Country Diaries, while Na addressed Choi directly in a tearful farewell. Taken together, the morning and evening visits show how the funeral hall became a gathering point for several generations of Korean entertainment, from Choi’s Country Diaries castmates to younger stars who grew up watching him.
Choi died at around 10 p.m. on October 29 at a hospital in Seoul’s Gangseo District, at the age of 87, while receiving treatment. He had undergone back surgery in March last year and later stepped down from hosting Korean Table after difficulty moving, focusing on rehabilitation as his health worsened. His body was moved in the early hours of October 30 to the funeral hall at Seoul Asan Hospital, where mourners have been arriving since that morning.
The funeral arrangements reflect both his family life and his charity work. His survivors include his wife Kim Min-ja, his son Dong-nyeol and his daughter Dong-bi, according to Star News. The funeral service is scheduled for 7 a.m. on November 2, followed by a memorial Mass at Yeouido Catholic Church and burial at Donghwa Memorial Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. The funeral is being conducted as a ChildFund Korea funeral, honoring a charity commitment that began during Country Diaries in 1981 and lasted 41 years, with the procession set to stop at the foundation’s Seoul headquarters on its way to the burial ground.
That combination of family, colleagues and charity work is why Kim Hye-ja’s visit resonated beyond a single condolence call. Choi’s career ran for more than half a century, from the classic police drama Chief Investigator to Country Diaries and then 14 years hosting Korean Table. For many viewers, his on-screen marriage to Kim Hye-ja was the most familiar part of that career, a fictional household that aired for over two decades and became part of everyday life.
Kim’s refusal to call the farewell final, then, was not just a personal remark. It spoke to how audiences and colleagues are remembering Choi: not as a figure closing a chapter, but as a presence whose work and relationships continue in the people he worked with and the viewers who watched him.
