Prosperous South Korea has the highest suicide rate

[Liberal_in_LA]

Choi Jin-young hanged himself last month with an electrical cord. The 39-year-old actor wasn't getting any work in local TV, police said, and he had been depressed since the suicide of his famous older sister.

The sister, Choi Jin-sil, was known as the "nation's actress." When she hanged herself in her bathroom in October 2008, a wave of sympathetic suicides swept South Korea and 1,700 people took their lives the following month.

Seven months later, former president Roh Moo-hyun jumped off a cliff to his death. "I can't begin to fathom the countless agonies down the road," he wrote in a note. Then a 20-year-old Chanel model, Daul Kim, killed herself, posting a blog entry that said: "Mad depressed and overworked." Another said: "The more I gain, the more lonely it is."

And so it ends for 35 South Koreans a day. The suicide rate in this prosperous nation of about 50 million people has doubled in the past decade and is now the highest in the industrialized world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/AR2010041702781.html?wprss=rss_print/asection

[marmar]

1. More money but a loss of the sense of community doesn't make people happier.....

nt

[Scurrilous]

2. Campaign by Samsung to cheer people up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vh-jxSWC9o

:P

[hunter]

3. Prosperity and suicide walk hand in hand.

Expectations are often unrealistic and poisonous.

[Feron]

4. On South Korea's corrupt entertainment industry...

South Korea’s entertainment industry is renowned for its ability to manufacture new sensations overnight. From hunky boy bands to female film stars, “K-celebs,” as they’re known, are the hottest property in Asia. But invariably, they’re also the property of all-powerful management agencies, which force them to sign so-called slave contracts, tying them to punishing schedules and curtailing their personal freedom. Thrust into the limelight, many homegrown stars are ill-prepared for the pressures of fame.
....

Actress Ja-yeon Jang, 26, popular soap star, killed herself last April and left behind a seven-page letter blasting the nation’s “evil and corrupt” entertainment industry. She said that on top of being told what to eat, what to wear, and where to socialize, she was forced to provide sexual favors to her agent’s business associates.

The Korea Times reports that many K-celeb contracts include clauses allowing agencies to keep up to 90 percent of stars’ earning and forbidding them to retire, causing some stars to feel that suicide is the only way out.

http://asianfanatics.net/forum/topic/718726-south-koreas-scary-fame-game/

I wonder if there are similar contracts outside of the entertainment industry. If so, that would explain a lot.

[NuttyFluffers]

5. i was there for these events. the ex-president Roh Moo-hyun one was pretty epic.

whole nation was following his lawsuit (though it looked more like harassment as it dragged on). when he finally committed suicide, every liberal person (after already significant buyer's remorse at the current prez) just fell into paroxysms of guilty conscience anguish. it was quite a sight/spectacle.

they are building sliding plastic doors (like ones in supermarkets) for all the portals onto and off the subway system in an effort to curb suicide by train. however hanging and death by gas is still quite popular. that place is fun, but more stressful for natives than a pressure cooker. when you have the Japanese int'l students say your country's level of societal pressure (in work, school, life, etc) is insane, you really have to take a look around and reassess.