The recent issue of suicide here in Korea is one where an outside perspective might be helpful. It's a touchy issue – as it is anywhere – and fraught with pain, anger, and embarrassment. But not talking about it and not facing it directly just makes the pain worse.
The recent suicide of pop star U-Nee and the typical ranting of the posturing, moralizing, and oversimplifying done written by the out-of-touch conservatives at the Korea Times and other mainstream newspapers in their editorials is typical of the general Korean attitude I have observed about suicide here: point the finger where it is the easiest, while keeping silent when is socially uncomfortable.
U-Nee didn't leave a suicide note, nor is there any other evidence to point to the reasons that singer made the tragic choice to take her own life besides the assumptions of people who haven't a clue about the inner workings of her psyche.
Using this simplistic and unfounded "logic," then the elementary school student who killed himself because Mommy yelled at him for watching TV, or the teenagers who kill themselves over $1000 bucks in credit card debt, or another elementary school student who was scolded for buying too many clothes for her avatars online – these cases should be the beginnings of campaigns against the "national disgrace" of scolding kids for watching TV, letting them use credit cards, or buying clothes for avatars online.
Clearly, what I am trying to say here is that there are a lot of cases of people who might have been crying out for help in other ways, who obviously had deep-seated depression or stress with which they could not cope, but the media simply chooses to choose the easy explanation, often the straw that broke the camel's back rather than the psychologically huge burdens that strained it in the first place.
And on the flipside, when the causes are as clear as day – which is most often the case for the many youth who kill themselves because of unimaginable pressure related to school ("my mother beats me if I don't get a perfect score" is something my students used to tell me matter-of-factly, as if they had just told me that the weather's cold outside), mum's the word.
Oh, newspapers and the media crow about student suicide for awhile and nothing changes. But the real crime – in the places where it affects students the most – is in the schools themselves.
If a student commits suicide in Korea, it's business as usual in the school. No memorial services, no speeches by the administrators, no grief counselors, no day of mourning – nada.
In fact, many schools actively ban any talk of the student's actions at atl, as if it's a big secret that no one knows about. This true cruelty and cowardice on the part of the adults who should be setting examples for students – they are educators, right? – drives home more deeply the message that only the desperate, diseased, and dysfunctional can't handle the system, so they are better left ignored, forgotten, and even despised.
It's hard to look at the increasing evidence that the education system is in itself an inhumane one, not at all concerned with the psychological and mental development of its students. Yes, more attention is being given to counseling in Korean schools these days – I know that more teachers are getting certifications to be called one, but I wonder if this isn't just more window dressing for the public rather than a change in strategy of dealing with youth mental health – but this is like applying a bandaid to an stomach wound spewing arterial blood.
I personally know, from a session at a Fulbright ETA workshop, that in a single year of our group of about 60 American teachers' experience working in the Korean public schools, 3 had cases with a student suicide. In those cases, the school forbade any gatherings, and one even made an announcement that forbade any talk of the incident, both inside the school and on the Internet. Nevertheless, some students had organized a boycott of the school for a day. Good for them.
Just a few weeks ago, a Korean teacher friend of mine said that a student had killed himself in her school, and the most the school did was – ahem, nothing – but the students put flowers in his empty seat.
So a student takes a flying leap off the building because of academic pressures, after many warning signs and bouts of severe depression and the typical pattern of withdrawing from family, friends, and refusing to do schoolwork, or jumping off a building after failing a major examination – and the next day at school, it's "turn in your homework, clean up your desks, and have a nice day"?
In the meat-grinder that is the Korean schools, when kids are offing themselves for obvious reasons, society does nothing, changes nothing – it's business as usual.
When a public figure commits suicide, the most superficial and least likely reasons explain all – netizen harrassment? Come on.
Think about U-Nee. Much of her harassment came from harsh quips about her endless series of plastic surgeries. Hmm. Sure, those barbs probably hurt, but does anyone stop to think about her psychological state, in that she had many more operations than even is expected for the most vain of Korean public figures?
I hear this so often – "She was so pretty! I don't understand. What a waste."
Well, she obviously didn't think so, or so one might reasonably assume, if we are going to sit in our armchairs and conjecture about it. At least we know that she was apparently never satisfied with her appearance enough that even the general public, used to as it is to plastic surgery as a part of the industry, was always surprised by the number of procedures she went through.
Or maybe the pressures of getting ahead in the dirty business that is Korean showbiz, or being a public figure in general? How about the possibility that something else, much deeper was going on? How is an editorial going to start ranting and raving about Korean netizens – who are the last people on earth for whom I have any form of sympathy, as my readers should know – doing what they do best, which is needle, barb, and mercilessly attack? That's a constant, not some unusual factor particular to the case of U-Nee, no matter how many comments she got about her "artificial human" appearance.
What really makes me suspicious is the sudden concern and caring right-wing newspapers have for a plastic, bubble-gum, K-pop star. And the sudden boost to the cause of having all Korean citizens being registered and traceable online, now being trumpeted with even more vigor across the boob tube, raises my hackles as well as my eyebrows.
I hate the rabid viciousness of many Korean netizens as much as the next digital dude, but the 1984-style management of this issue and the Korean Internet is pretty disturbing, almost as much as the apparent moral indignation over the individual lives of those who have committed suicide seems hollow and false.
