SOUTH KOREA HAS BEEN IN THE NEWS A LOT LATELY. IF IT'S NOT PLAYING PIGGY IN THE MIDDLE IN THE TRANSPACIFIC PISSING CONTEST BETWEEN DONALD TRUMP AND KIM JONG-UN, IT'S HOSTING THE 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS IN PYEONGCHANG. ALL THIS KOREA TAKES ME BACK TO THE THREE YEARS I SPENT LIVING IN THE COUNTRY - AND THE BLOG I WROTE ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES THERE. Although I love the country, THE FOLLOWING WAS ONE OF THE HARDEST BLOGS I WROTE - ABOUT SUICIDE IN KOREA.
The dark spectre of suicide hangs ominously over the neon intoxication that is modern-day Korea. Oft talked about within the foreigner community, it is the subject of numerous debates on various internet forums. Amongst the sadness and regret, most commentators are of an accord that suicide is merely a tragic consequence of the society in which we now find ourselves living. Earlier this month, an article was posted on the BBC website, detailing a British journalist's investigative trip to Seoul's centre for Emergency Services, in an attempt to witness first hand the implications of soaring suicide rates on the capital. Upon seeing the article in question, sat there on the home page of one of the most visited websites in the world, I couldn't help but fruitlessly hope that any international attention garnered from the article would somehow filter into Korean society and, somehow, change something, anything. But why is suicide such a big problem in Korea? Why are today's generation apparently five times more likely to kill themselves than that of their parents? Why are at least forty people every day taking their own lives? What is it about modern Korean society which pushes it's citizens into suicide?
Well, desperately unfortunately, there seems to be a whole raft of reasons behind the growing epidemic of suicide surging through the younger generations. But, a lot of it can, somehow, be summed up with just a single word; pressure. It is exceedingly difficult to explain to anyone who has never visited Korea to explain just what a pressurised society it is here. There is pressure in almost every walk of life, exerted down onto individuals by peers, family and, perhaps more distressingly, society. And, of course, some people just get tired of having to live through all that. I cannot begin to understand what kind of things are going through the minds of people who see suicide as the best option; those who see some sort of salvation in the noose of a rope; those for whom jumping off the top of a ten story building as a route to safety.
Pressure, in Korea, starts at home and at a very, very young age. I've blogged before about the pressures and expectations heaped upon Korean schoolchildren by their families and peers from an excruciatingly early age. Working at an elementary school, as I do, I am only party to the beginnings of the damaging cycle of paralysing pressure and relentless routine. I have ten year-olds studying through the night in misplaced efforts to pass an upcoming (and futile) exam. They are forever telling me they are tired, or that they don't want to go to after school hagwons in favour of spending time with their friends. They hang around school just so they don't have to go home and face questions about their academic progress. But, unfortunately, elementary school is just the tip of the iceberg. The shit hits the proverbial fan some four or five years later, in high school.
I wouldn't wish the lives of Korean high school students on any other child in the industrialised world, they are that intense. A standardly rigourous day at school is dragged out until the early evening, before hagwon and homework take precedent. The students are often lucky to get four hours of sleep a night around studying. What kind of life is that for anyone, let alone a teenager? They are non-stop learning machines, solely existing to get the grades they need to attend a good university, and to deliver them to the lives they have been cruelly led to believe that they must have in order to be considered happy or successful. Understandably, for some, the pressure just gets too much and they snap. A recent news article featured a high school student who had lied about his grades in a bid to appease his domineering mother. So worried was he about the punishment, both mental and physical, that she'd give him, he decided against coming clean. Instead, he murdered his mother in cold blood and left her body to decompose in the living room of the apartment they'd shared. The strange thing is, when I read the article, I felt sympathy for the boy. Of course, murder was an extreme reaction, but the pressure he must have been under was probably just as extreme. To be honest, I felt reading it that had he not killed his mother, he would have killed himself and ended up as just another statistic. For most, of course, the outcome is thankfully not that dramatic. And yet, for a growing number, it seems suicide is sadly seen as the only chance they have to finally get some sleep.
But it's not just school students over whom the shadow of suicide hangs. Suicide is even more prevalent in the adult world; the vast majority of the 40 people a day being well away from the confines of high school. But the pressure doesn't stop. The expectations to succeed doesn't stop. The magnitude of importance placed on money and success doesn't diminish. If anything, it only strengthens. Fresh from finishing university, graduates are expected to attain well paid positions in companies such as Samsung or LG, and quickly work their way up the corporate ladder. The importance of money in Korean culture is well-drilled from a young age, and for many parents, seeing their children attain employment at a company like the ones mentioned is to be expected. And with the job comes the relationship, marriage and children. It's part of the package. Of course, there are differing levels of pressure regarding marriage across the world, Korea is not alone here. But the pressure of having a successful career, coupled with the intense need to be married off by thirty, whether you want to be or not, is a cocktail some find just too strong. Parents want to have grandchildren, they want their children to have their own apartment in the city with their partner/family and have the disposable income to match it. And, of course, if you don't find a partner, or just don't want one, then you're looked down upon and the pressure to conform rackets up a couple of notches.
Of course, there are some groups of people who are sadly more prone to taking this kind of drastic action than others. Issues with the acceptance of homosexuality in Korea have sadly led numerous people, both young and old, into taking their own lives. Some just can't bear the prospect of bringing shame to their families by coming out to their parents and, knowing they will never be happy without their parents' approval, decide to kill themselves. Other's live lies; marrying women or men just because it's socially accepted and then face a lifetime of unhappiness which often ends in tragedy. But, it's not just everyday people that are ending their lives prematurely, though. In the last few years, there have been several incidents of high-profile celebrities taking their lives. Pop stars, actors, even a former president have ended their own lives. And each time, it's been met with a ripple of shock and intrigue from a Korean population seemingly ignorant to the fact that suicide is a major health-risk in the country.
And as tragic as it is, and despite the fact that several high-profile suicides have finally grabbed the passing attention of the wider Korean populous, I just can't see the epidemic relenting it's grip anytime soon. In any other country, a figure of 40 reported suicides per day would cause alarm and a media frenzy. But not in Korea. Suicide is just something that is shrugged off, brushed under the carpet. It's not something to talk about. A person committing suicide is seen as weak minded, as a black mark on their family. Those even contemplating killing themselves are often ostracised by their families when they need them the most, much like those suffering from depression are, which is, of course, often a fore bearer to suicide. But, of course, no-one wants to talk about it. No-one wants to investigate the rife, concurrent problems with depression and suicide in the country today. And if no-one wants to talk about it, even politicians and governments, then there is little chance of anything be done about it. The only slight hope would be if Korean society stopped putting such intense pressure on the importance of money, success and material things. The daily pressures on people are just too much; to conform, to succeed, to be rich, to have material things (kids included), to be the best person you could possibly be for everyone else's benefit but your own. And, as someone who witnesses Korean culture on a day-to-day basis, I can begrudingly admit that that isn't likely to ever happen.
Sadly, one of the most painful things for my personally is the fact that, in the future, one of my current students may well become so overwhelmed by life here in Korea that they feel their only escape is taking their own life. I currently teach over two hundred students a week, and hundreds more were taught in my previous school, it seems painfully inevitable that one of these students could be so depressed, so trapped in their own lives that they kill themselves. And, of course, I'd never even know about it. I'd been long gone from their lives and would be powerless to even start to help them. But I see them everyday, their smiling faces shining back at me, it's hard to imagine them as anything other than these 'carefree' kids that they are today. And yet, when I think about what their lives are going to be like in the future, I can't help but feel for them. I can't help but hope beyond hope that none of them end up stepping off a ten-story building just to get a rest from their lives. And yet, it seems just so unnecessarily unavoidable. The pressures that they'll be under throughout their lives to make everyone but themselves happy are daunting. I can't even imagine what that those smiling faces will end up having to go through. I don't think I even want to.
This post was originally published in November 2011