Roh Moo-hyun

As you probably know, South Korea's former president Roh Moo-hyun ("Roh" should actually be pronounced "No") recently committed suicide, probably in light of a bribery investigation. It's a good time now to talk about some differences in culture.

I heard on CNN that suicide is the 4th leading cause of death in Korea, and the LEADING cause of death among men aged 18-35. It's deeply disturbing, but when you see the pressure the kids are under here, it's not really surprising. They all attend multiple after-school academies, all of which are expensive. It's a nation of nearly 50 million people in a small country. Competition for the best jobs must be insane. Failure is not an option. On top of that, the drinking culture is dramatically out of hand. On any given day you'll walk by a bar and see grown men in suits in a state of inebriation usually associated with frat boys engaging in homoerotic initiation rituals. I can't imagine working long hours and drinking that much can be psychologically healthy. My understanding is that Asian cultures don't really believe in psychiatry either, favoring instead the "suck it up and deal with it" method.

One other thing to point out is that the crime Roh was accused of was taking $6 million in bribes. While corruption in office is never acceptable, that wouldn't even register on the radar of the country that developed the Haliburton no-bid contract. Roh said the following in his suicide note:

I have owed to too many people. The amount of burden I have caused to them is too great. I can't begin to fathom the countless agonies down the road. The rest of my life would only be a burden for others.

He felt this much guilt over $6 million in bribes. Meanwhile. the villains who failed to prevent 9/11, invaded Iraq under false pretenses leading to the deaths of tens of thousands, tortured their fellow men, and robbed millions of people of their retirement funds with crooked financial schemes take their pensions, their executive bonuses, their Presidential Libraries, their national talk shows, and still have the gall to defend their actions. Not that suicide is ever the answer, but perhaps it says something about the nature of accountability in the United States (specifically, that there isn't any).

Finally, while attempting to attend a show in Seoul, Brenda and I got caught up in the memorial for Roh near City Hall. They had scores of riot police standing by, but everything was very peaceful. Thousands and thousands of mourners waiting in a line that stretched more than a kilometer, winding down into the subway and around several blocks. Americans might wait that long for Stones tickets, but not to pay respect to a political leader. Are South Koreans more loyal? Or are our leaders just alienating everyone in the country?

We didn't take pictures of the memorial procession out of respect, but here's a picture of some gold ribbons that were strung in Roh's memory near the City Hall in Daejeon. It goes around the block.