Korea top in the OECD... for suicide... again

The Voice of America has an article highlighting the latest news reports in what has long been an infamous, chronic problem in South Korea: the terribly high suicide rate.

South Korea has the highest suicide rate among the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

South Korean news reports say about 15,500 people in South Korea committed suicide in 2009. This represents about 28 deaths by suicide for every 100,000 people, or about 42 people on average daily.

The country's suicide rate is the highest among 34 OECD member countries.

The Yonhap news agency quotes a new report by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which says that suicide is the number one cause of death for people aged between 10 and 40 years in the southeast Asian country.

It says the second most frequent cause of death for South Korean people in that age bracket is traffic accidents, followed by cancer.

Yonhap quotes a ministry official saying the government is planning to open prevention centers throughout South Korea to help lower the suicide rate.

It says a new legislation on suicide prevention passed the National Assembly in March.

I am curious about how the centers will work out, including whether they'll get enough funding from the government and acceptance by the public. Perhaps I should investigate when I'm in Korea next, but in the meantime, past thoughts of mine on the suicide epidemic can be found here (with more links here and here, with some overlap).

UPDATE:
Cory in Korea has a fairly thorough post on the issue, the kind of thing I'd write right now if I had a bit more time. As I suggested in my link about the suicide epidemic just above, as well as in comments on other blogs, one of the biggest problems to overcome is that suicide has come to be seen as normative and even noble. From a public health perspective, this is a disaster of despair.

...

Hey, LG! Need a recognized celebrity with a famous face to do an endorsement?

How about Charles Manson? He'll apparently do anything to get his hands on an LG flip phone.

Maybe someone should slip him an iPad and put him on a "Think Different" billboard.

Kate Bosworth schools America on the tough lives of Korean celebrities

The uber-cute Kate Bosworth is making the rounds, promoting her upcoming cowboys-and-ninja movie The Warrior's Way, in which she stars with Korean heartthrob and Taegŭkki: The Brotherhood of War star Jang Dong-gun [chang tonggŏn, 장동건].

This includes a stop on the show of some woman I've never seen nor heard of, to talk about her co-star who is "the Brad Pitt of Korea*."



The above video is just a teaser, and it's not the most sophisticated of Korean social commentary, but it would explain why we have so few celebrities in South Korea, say, showing off their red mango.

Gotta say, I've liked Kate Bosworth ever since Blue Crush, and she comes across as hella smarter than Jessica Simpson.

* I'm reminded of a line by Lisa Simpson: "Anything that's the 'something of something' isn't really the anything of anything." Not that I'm knocking Jang Dong-gun, whose choice of Romanizing his name — dong gun — is about as phallically powerful a celebrity/newsmaker moniker I've heard since Dick Pound. 

A veritable epidemic

This morning I wake up and the first new post I see is at Brian in Chŏllanam-do's website, announcing the tragic news that actress Jang Ja-yeon (장자연, chang chayŏn), who plays Sunny on "Boys Over Flowers," has committed suicide (I'm still looking for an English-language news source to link, but the Drama Beans blog has a good write-up). 

This tragedy (and I tend to label any suicide of a healthy person as a tragedy) is not an isolated event, but a string of such incidents that can rightly be considered an epidemic within the celebrity community. 

Most notable among these is the death of Choi Jin-sil (최진실, ch'oé chinshil), but there have been plenty of others, including the death of "Brotherhood" lead actress Lee Eunju (이은주, yi ŭnju). This site on Korean pop culture has a post following a celebrity suicide last year, which talks about the so-called "Werther Effect" as a factor in this string of deaths. 

I have never seen "Boys Over Flowers," but I have heard plenty about the so-called "ubiquidrama." My greater concern is that suicide among these performers ends up modeling "acceptable" behaviors for everyday people in South Korea, where suicide is already at astronomical rates. 

In other words, these public suicides of well-known figures have the disturbing effect of making the killing of oneself seem favorable and normative. And for people already not thinking straight, normative and normal seem to overlap. 

In all seriousness, the entertainment industry in Korea needs to face this problem head on. Set up a task force or something and make sure that all the people who go on stage are checked for psychological problems and have easy and non-judgmental access to mental health care. 

That last part is the hard part. Even more so than in the West, there is a tremendous stigma associated with seeing a mental health professional. The solution itself may have to rely on media images to make this brave act itself normative: Perhaps get a celebrity who knows she/he needs help and do a reality program where she/he seeks and gets the help that is needed and comes out the other end much better. 

It would have to be a brave person, because if the program backfired, it could be a career killer. If it worked and this type of program became a catalyst for other celebrities and regular folk seeking help instead of committing suicide, the celebrity would be praised as a hero. Hmm... instead of talking about what other people should do, maybe I should use my own professional resources to get this done myself. 

Then perhaps some good can come out of this latest tragedy.

Jang Ja-yeon et al, requiescant in pace. 

UPDATE:
Seoulfull reports that Ms Chung had made a phone call at 2:30 p.m. that day, stating that she couldn't handle the pressure of contract and work problems and that she wanted to die. 

One thing that must be made crystal clear: If someone calls you and tells you they want to die, take it seriously. Always take it seriously. It is better to be embarrassed for overreacting to that than to feel tragedy for the rest of your life thinking you could have stopped it.

For the person thinking about suicide, that kind of call is a cry for help. It's often a desperate, feet-on-the-ledge cry for help that should not be ignored. (And in case you're wondering, yes, I have been in that call-receiving position. I was a teenager at the time and didn't fully understand what was happening, although in the end tragedy was averted.)

Sadly, though, even if someone takes that call and tries to help their suicidal friend or loved one, too few people know of what resources are available to them in South Korea, and that perceived humiliation associated with mental health services prevents people from going even if they do know how to get it. As I've said, the Korean media needs to do something — right away — to end that impression.

Tragedy compounded by tragedy

It was just four months ago, in early October 2008, that popular South Korean actress Choi Jinsil [최진실/崔眞實] committed suicide. 

In 1991, the troubled Ms Choi was the star of Susanne Brink's Arirang, a movie that depicted a very unflattering picture of overseas adoption of Korean children. I blogged about that movie and the issue here. 

Now comes news that the real-life Susanne Brink, on whom the movie was based, has passed away on January 23, at the age of forty-five. The influential adoptee activist changed how adoption of Koreans — and probably other country's children — was perceived. (Hat tip to djkimcheelove)

I admit that I don't share the conclusion that all overseas adoptions should be stopped, but I do think that the process — who was adopting, how (if at all) they were screened, who was being adopted, and especially how they came into a position to be adopted — needed much more scrutiny. Susanne Brink's work and the movie about her brought that spotlight. I hope others will continue it in her absence. 

Leave Rush the fu¢k alone

Rush Limbaugh, bastion of conservative talk radio and long-time supporter of the ACLU (or is that the other way around?), is in the news yet again.

Beneath the inflammatory headline, "Limbaugh's latest drug run-in," CNN informs us that radio commentator Rush Limbaugh was detained for three hours at the Palm Beach, Florida, airport because, according to police, he had Viagra in his possession without a valid prescription.

Okay, so the guy did have legal problems surrounding how he illegally obtained painkillers and all that, but does every move the guy makes deserve this kind of press play?

Show a fucking ounce of compassion, not to mention propriety and proportionality.

Yeah, the guy can be a jerk, a polarizer, an occasional race-baiter, a deceiver, etc., etc. (and yes, I often listen to his show; unlike some people, I regularly listen to people of a different ideological bent from my own, even those I consider dogmatic, because it helps me challenge and strengthen — and occasionally alter — my own beliefs), but none of that deserves the embarrassment of having such details of one's private life splattered all over the media.

It was already iffy when the press was trying to get ahold of his medical records during his painkiller legal fiasco, but this goes beyond the pale.

The famous are people, too. I can't think of anyone who would want their use of Viagra plastered all over the place. So the guy was detained over his possession of the medication that had his doctor's name, not his, but this is going overboard. He admitted the medication was his — it had the doctors's names on it, according to Limbaugh's lawyer, to protect this very privacy — and was released without charge.

So if he ever gets detained over a traffic ticket, are we going to here about this? Is that the requisite for the press to get involved? Or is it only when he gets detained for potentially humiliating things?

Leave the guy the fuck alone.

Yeah, yeah. I know that's not going to happen. It's man-bites-dog news, and the hypocritical, merciless, acerbic, and vitriolic may not be deserving of the kind of compassion he denies his opponents (or their kids), but on principle, if nothing else, it is wrong to make this into the media story it is.

The public ain't got a right to know a fucking thing here.