Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dporter]

[visitorq]

[Gillian57]

Slapping my face is both an act of courage and suicide all rolled up into one. NOONE is allowed to slap my face regardless of the provication.

[Bloopity Bloop]

[Kikomom]

Through early morning fog I see, visions of the things to be ...

[Adventurer]

It is one thing if someone is terminally ill and is in intense pain and then takes his or her life, because you are dying at that point, at any rate.
If someone jumps off a cliff because he doesn't want to face the music when it comes to his family pocketing millions, is iit an act of courage? If someone cannot handle an unfair scandal and does himself or herself in, it is not an act of courage but rather but rather an act to end a life you feel is over because you feel your self-esteem can't handle living. In Japan, they may call it saving face.

In some cultures if you feel you've lost face, and you've been shamed, then the honorable way for you to go is to kill yourself. I know that's somewhat true in Japan, and it may be true in Korea as well. The Japanese would commit hara kiri or have their opponents kill them if they somehow felt some horrible psychological loss. The loss to the family who has lost someone to suicide is very, very, very immense. Some see it as a selfish act.

Anyway, I think people need to encourage to live, to flourish, not take their lives.

[Goku]

It's brave in the physical sense, I have the balls to jump off a cliff

but its cowardly in the emotional way, I'm just too weak to deal with my problems.

Although, in some cases, I consider suicide to be pure bravery. Mostly in cases where cultures viewed suicide in a sense of honor, hara kiri or sepukku, Kamikazes, etc.

In those cases people commited suicide for honor, family, and country. It's like self sacrifice but closer to suicide.

[Lunar Groove Gardener]

The OP is reacting to what many may agree to be the misuse of the
term "cowardly" by, in my opinion, equally misusing its opposite "brave".

So why does the OP not just speak specifically and state that they feel that the ex-president did a very brave thing?
This would seem the secondary point being made here.

The primary point is that "cowardly" should not be applied to describe the act of suicide, followed by an overgeneralized notion that "brave" always applies.

Are all meals delicious?

Perhaps all suicides are "tragic", or "unfortunate", but "brave"?

Many here have said that suicide "can be" this or that...a less emphatic characterization seems more fitting.

The conclusion might be to simply choose a more appropriate term. After all, a fluent speaker would likely choose different terms for different circumstances.

Unfortunately, "anti-North American" trolling poisons the intent of the original post, denying it the mature repose appropriate when discussing such weighty matters as whether you wish your students to be brave when they fail their course of studies and face severe consequences.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

[VanIslander]

I just minutes ago finished a class in which I asked them what they did on the weekend and they mentioned watching the president's funeral which led to a discussion with a half dozen Korean middle school students in the monday night advanced level conversation hagwon class, they telling me that they think of what Rho Mu Hyun did as cowardly and selfish, not brave, but admitted there was a generation gap on the topic, that their parents and older Koreans think of it as brave.

Interesting!

[Bloopity Bloop]

[Fox]

Given the vast array of reasons one might consider committing suicide for, the immense variety of emotional states one could be in when considering and/or committing suicide, and the impact the many cultures of the world can have upon the personalities and values of the people influenced by them, I cannot understand how someone can make the sorts of generalizations about suicide that are displayed in this thread. It's a very complex action that I would say defies simple three word characterizations.

[need 2 know]

And it's not painless, either. Chances are if you didn't suffer, someone else did.

[hamlet712]