The Causes of Famous People Suicide in Korea

   Istiqomah Khairunnisah(12320037)

    Khoridatul Istigfaroh(12320153)          

          Suicide has gained attention as a national problem after the deaths of several well-known people in Korea.  According to Organization for Economic Corporation Development (OECD), more than 1,500 Koreans committed suicide in 2010, which is a 50 cases increase from 2006. Therefore, the rate of suicide in Korea is the highest in the world. There are several general causes behind this suicide cases, they are physical appearance, psychological despair, and economic difficulties.

Physical appearance is one of some reasons why famous people in Korea committing suicide. Hard competition between entertainers forces them to always show their perfect appearance in front of their fans, in order to survive in entertainment world.Actually not all of them have good physical appearance and the best choice to make them look better is doing plastic surgery which is unfortunately will endanger them. In the other hand, plastic surgery also make them addicted, and when they are not satisfied with the result, it will make them depression and the last action is committing suicide. Most of them often would rather die than look bad.

Other reason of committing suicide is psychological despair. Most of Korean entertainers have very high expectation in their career. However, it is not supported by their qualified abilities; they only give priority to their good physical appearance and deny the qualified skill they should performed. As a result, there are many of people especially netizens (people who use internet) who give them rude critics and meanest things on celebrity news articles about their fake performance. These things absolutely make them suffer psychologically. Final way to solve that problem is taking their own lives (suicide). 

 An economic difficulty is also contributed in this case. Korea’s economy is currently at the worst possible rate but competition for getting a job is the highest rate and only the best can survive. In the other hand, creditor and loan shark are also having role in this case and many of celebrities in Korea who have problem with them. Ahn Jae Hwan is one of Korean celebrities who have a high dept. He borrowed a huge amount of money from illegal creditor for a movie that he was making. Unfortunately, he could not pay the debt and could not get out of it. Ahn was found dead in his car on September 8, 2008. Police confirmed that he was committing suicide by consuming poisons.

Nowadays, it seems that committing suicide is becoming “trend” among the Korean artists. They think that take their own life is the best and the final way to solve their problem. They never think that life is too worthy to be waste. Although there are many of obstacles impeding our way, we should face it. Ending the life early is not good choice to choose, because there is no problem without its solution. As a quote from D. H Lawrence, “Life is beautiful, as long as it consumes you. When it is rushing through you, destroying you, life is gorgeous, glorious. It’s when you burn a slow fire and save fuel that life’s not worth having”.