animalbirdfish
Joined: 04 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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In the past few days, I've read about the guy they fished out of the Han River (supposedly killed himself to "save face"), the group of 20 somethings that apparently committed group suicide in Suwon, and then this story. It seems to me that Koreans find death/suicide to be the "simple solution" to almost any problem.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that you can't find examples of this in other cultures, but it seems awfully common in Korea. How many people committed suicide during the IMF? What about the poor students that commit suicide around the time of the university entrance exam?
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I don't think they view it as a simple solution. I think the ideas of filial piety, family loyalty, etc. come down pretty heavy in the shame area. So a person (like the Daewoo guy who offed himself) might feel that they've disgraced their family and thus need to end their life. On the other hand, suicide is considered one of the worst things a person can do to the living, because the spirits will supposedly haunt the dead person's lineage. These notions seem a bit conflicting to me, but then I wasn't raised in Korea.
In the past, during protests, police would often lay out mattresses around buildings trying to prevent suicides, partially because they don't want the PR problems that would result, but also because of these traditional beliefs. |
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