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Tag Archives: Suicide

Things that just make me so sad

04-Oct-08

Things that just make me so sad

By Saharial It is becoming increasingly obvious to me, even as a distant overseas observer of the Korean Entertainment industry, that something is going seriously wrong. This morning seemed to sum up far too many of the ills for, when I woke up, the news had broken that there had been yet another suicide, making 2008 an appalling year for the entertainment world in terms of personal tragedy and loss of talent. The victim this time was Choi Jin-shil, a well respected, versatile actress, a mother of two children and the target of false rumours and accusations which in the end proved too much to cope with. Less than a month ago, Ahn Jae-hwan, a Korean TV show presenter and businessman was ...
Filed in Celebs, In the news | Also tagged | Comments (0) »

Suicide Notes

28-Nov-07
Kim Young-ha: I have the right to destroy myself Originally published 1996 Translation by Kim Chi-young, Harcourt, 2007 Stern(8,g) An entertaining book to read, but somehow difficult to distill and digest. The narrator, who makes a macabre living as a self-employed suicide counselor, bizarrely seeks out clients whose exits he facilitates. A small and eccentric cast of characters includes an artist, his taxi-driving brother, the girl they're both having a relationship with and another girl who because of an unfortunate sexual experience is unable to drink water. The story is well-constructed, the text well-translated. This is Kim's first novel, and well worth a second read. Links Buy at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk Kim Young-ha page at authortek Related posts:Korea has OECD’s top suicide rate Korea’s National Statistics Office recent ...
Filed in Book reviews: Literature in Korean | Also tagged | Comments (0) »

Deadly Elves and other recent tabloid stories

28-Aug-07

Deadly Elves and other recent tabloid stories

It's a while since I did a round-up of celebrity news, which means that I've almost forgotten all the things I was going to mention, and lost most of the links that I was going to use. So before things get completely out of hand, here's one of my not-so-regular posts shamelessly plundering the celebrity blogs. 1 Bada After my recent post defending Bada against the assaults of Popseoul I exchanged a few emails with the Popseoulites. They don't have an issue with her singing ability, just her sense of style. I'm coming round to their way of thinking, based on one of their more recent posts. A weird vision. And the singing ability? Well, I've now listened to Made ...
Filed in Bada, Beauty, Celebs, Honey Lee, Jang Dong-gun, Jeon Do-yeon, Jeon Ji-hyun, Kim Yun-jin, Lee Hyolee, Rain, SG Wannabe, Samsung, Super Junior, Uhm Jung-hwa, VoDs | Also tagged | Comments (0) »

Korea has OECD’s top suicide rate

02-Oct-06
Korea's National Statistics Office recent report was picked up by Yonhap and the Chosun. "The high suicide rate in South Korea seems to reflect a surge in social conflicts, including feuds between the sexes, economic hardship and domestic violence," an NSO official said according to Yonhap. The Chosun article focuses on the "prolonged economic slump and loss of jobs" as the cause. If any sociologist has picked up on the story, I'd be interested in hearing how feuds between the sexes have contributed to the suicide rate. The Chosun does the simple maths, and comes up with a pretty impactful statistic: in 2005 on average, every day 33 people took their own lives. One of those 33 on 22 February 2005 was sadly ...
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