A question just as important, and probably more pressing, than how Koreans might react to a Cho Seung-hui-esque massacre on their own soil, is how this country as a whole deals with depression and mental illness. This weekend brought the unfortunate news that Korea now has the highest suicide rate in the world, a dramatic shift for the worse since the early 1980’s:
According to an OECD report on Sunday, Korea’s suicide rate stands at 24.7 cases per 100,000 people, the highest in the group. Hungary followed with 22.6, then Japan with 20.3 and Belgium with 18.4. The U.S. recorded 10.2 suicides per 100,000, less than half Korea’s figure…. In 1982, Korea’s suicide rate stood at 6.8 cases per 100,000, one of the lowest in the world, along with Mexico at 2.3, Greece at 3.3 and Spain at 4.8
This Chosun piece offers several explanations (economic woes, a fiercely competitive education system, the breakdown of the traditional family), but neglects to point out any real solutions to what I think can justifiably be called a social crisis. If suicide is to be addressed in any meaningful way, Korea will have to accept not only that depression is an illness, but that it is a treatable illness. OhMyNews ran a fine article on this problem back in February:
Dr. Daniel Fisher, an American psychiatrist, recently visited South Korea at the invitation of the National Human Rights Commission. His observations gleaned from the trip, which he included on his Web site, are telling: “South Korea is still operating the type of institution-based system seen in the U.S. 40 years ago,” he wrote. According to Fisher, people labeled with mental illness in South Korea are treated as an extreme underclass.
He visited Yongin Hospital on the outskirts of Seoul and was shocked by what he saw. The model of psychiatry practiced in South Korea reflects the hierarchy of Confucianism, essentially meaning that the father has the power to admit members of his family as he sees fit — one wife was admitted for two months for changing her religion; one young man was in for a year for yelling at his father. In addition to fifteen people sharing a room, the hospital carries out ECT without anesthesia which leads to broken bones.
These are no doubt extreme examples, but they reflect a fundamental lack of psychiatric care in this country. It’s revealing that guidance counselors are nowhere to be found in Korea’s hyper-competitive schools. If you’re a depressed high school kid, you either go to your homeroom teacher (who may also be grading your final exam) or figure things out on your own. And if you’re a depressed office worker, you have to worry that a trip to the shrink will appear in your medical history, which employers can dig up without too much trouble. No wonder so many people turn to the socially acceptable “counseling” offered by fortune tellers.
47 Comments
While I was teaching at universities in Korea, I was totally shocked and appalled by the rate of suicude and accidental death going on. While at KAIST in 1996, two students killed themselves in a week, while during the same semester, one student fell in the fountain and drowned, while another was tossed in as a “joke” by his friends and also drowned. Charges? Nope, it was an “accident.”
In Daegu, two freshmen, totally blotto, were tossed in the fountain by their seniors and drowned on two consequetive nights during the annual Spring Festival Drunken Orgy. In the latter case, a fellow freshmen jumped in the fountain to save his friend and he also drowned, being dragged under. All the deaths were considered “accidents” and the files were closed ASAP to avoid the nonsensical “shame” bullshit. The families must have suffered terribly but don’t dare seek mental health help in Korea.
I could cite many other examples but what is the point?
mdrk, this is a good topic to raise. Thanks for bringing it up.
I wonder what the statistics would be if the DPRK were added?
“a Cho Seung-hui-esque massacre “
You mean “Seung-hui-Cho-esque”
BTW, Korean media are giving coverage to the addition of a thirty-third memorial stone for Cho and the accompanying messages of forgiveness.
Sorry, the OP’s initials are “mdr.” I mistyped “mdrk.” (Fast fingers, although the “r” and “k” keys are nowhere near each other on a QWERTY keyboard….)
In Europe the big reforms in psychatry began in the 70s and lasted until the 80ies. Before the scenery in the hospitals was bad. Bounded patients, bad treatment, no treatment. It’s not long ago. One story the director of a big hospital in Germany told to the new staff. There was a department where people were spending their life unable to articulate themselfs, a lot of unrestless. The director decided to send them to the dentist. It seemed to be they were treated the first time. Afterwards the life in that department was more human, more quiet. The patients suffered from severe toothache before. That was the surprise.
I ment bonded patients
Great observation on the huge interest in fortune tellers in Korea.
However, this mental illness stigma is not a Korean problem. It’s a world wide problem.
Even in the US, some patients elect to pay out of their own pockets to see a psychiatrist, because they fear, FEAR, that their bosses might find out and react negatively.
Have cancer, AIDS, a genetic disease? Fine.
Have a mental illness? They might find a reason to fire you.
Or so the patients think. Given, in Korea, it may not be what just the patients think, it might be true.
In addition, a lot of psych symptoms become clearly evident when young men and women enter college, military, etc.
Suicide is a problem in Korea.
Korean society still look at suicide as an acceptable form of self expression. Suicidal thoughts are not only accepted but in cases honored. This “honor” part comes from Japan.
When a person is led to feel unworthy due to his school or job performance or due to business failure, suicide is often considered or even suggested indirectly.
The society has to change: it has to admit suicide as a mental disease. As an act of a sick person. Koreans do not view it as such.
Just like excessive drinking, Koreans honor suicide.
This got to change.
“However, this mental illness stigma is not a Korean problem. It’s a world wide problem.”
True. Mental illness is not unique to Korea; however, the stigma surrounding it, plus the absence of assistance (ie. counseling) complicates the problem enormously.
I’ve discussed the issue with university classes as recently as last month, and none of my students were aware of any person they could visit, number they could call, etc. on campus (or off) if they or a friend were feeling suicidal. I don’t imagine the situation is much better for middle school and high school students.
I know a lot of people in Canada and the United States who are pretty open about having suffered from depression, and most are not afraid about discussing couseling, medication, etc. There are still people who are spooked by mental illness, there are obviously sufferers who slip through the cracks, and there are likely some people beyond help, but there are options that most folks are aware of.
This wasn’t always the case in the west, and I presume it won’t always be so in Korea, but considering Korea’s high suicide rate - and the fact that young Koreans are especially at risk - it should be a priority.
Coreans have other techniques of dealing with the mentally ill….
Ever notice that the self help section of the Kyobo book store is gigantic?
Also, a few years back when I was teaching, I noticed that a few of my adult students just wanted to talk. The topic of loneliness came up a lot. They weren’t taking the class to learn English. They were taking the class to talk to people totally disconnected with their lives.
baduk is right on the suicide being “honorable” coming from Japan.
“I’ve discussed the issue with university classes as recently as last month, and none of my students were aware of any person they could visit, number they could call, etc. on campus (or off) if they or a friend were feeling suicidal. I don’t imagine the situation is much better for middle school and high school students.”
I remember seeing on TV a few years ago the president of a very prestigious British university (it was either Oxford or Cambridge) express his disgust at the lack of amenities that Korean universities offer to their students while he was on visit in Korea. He said that the lack of adequate services is inexcusable as Korea is one of the top economies in the world.
Even the tiniest universities back home have at least peer counselors. At my university (roughly 8000 students), the psychology professors (a rarity in Korea) offered free consultations to any student who stepped into their office. The student centre also had a sports doctor, a general practitioner, and a gynecologist on staff.
I know it is de rigeur for certain people to blame Japan for everything from the weather to the price of rice in China, but did you not read Richardson’s post? Twenty-five years ago, Korea had a very low suicide rate.
We know, we know — everything bad in Korea comes from Japan or the United States.
My two won: in Korea you have the shell of confucianism, the hierarchy and obligations without the reciprocity or fairness, and a shame-based society. Toss in marriages of convenience, endless work hours, alcoholism and a tradition of quietly sucking it up (as in no counseling or therapy) and it’s no wonder the suicide rate is so high.
Although suicide was invented by Japan and Americans are worse, of course :/
yeah even down the in the PI they talk about the high rates of suicide between japan and korea
compared to south east asian nations
Interesting that the Korean rate was so low in the 80s. Guess you have to be rich enough to consider killing yourself. Probably also related to the breakdown of the extended family. And suicide is not the only result - anyone notice the frequent stories in the Korean media about middle school abuse/rape and 원조 교제? I’ve heard some say that Korean kids are the scariest group in the country. There’s no community to replace or compensate for erosion of family support. And, it seems that Koreans are not taught individual self sufficiency, so they have little to fall back on in times of trouble.
Suicide is not viewed as honorable or respectable in Korean society. Quite the contrary, its viewed as cowardly. The reason behind South Koreas abysmally high rate of suicide rate is not because of honor or lack of help centers. Its because of stress.
Theres a reason why Korean parents are sending their children off to foreign countries in order to get an education. The US and Canada tend to be top choices, but Korean parents are sending their children by the thousands to poorer countries(China, Philippines etc) in order to get an education. Why are they doing this? Because of competition. Extreme competition leads to stress, stress leads to depression and depression leads to suicide. Korean schools are located within the 9th level of hell so its not surprising that parents are sending their children off to foreign countries in order to get a less stress-more creativity bound education. It doesnt take a genius to look at how flawed and stressful Korean education is. I could write a very long piece on Korean education and stress but im pretty sure most of you are already aware of the current situation. Korea education is so bad, its no wonder why parents are sending their children off by the thousands. Amongst foreign students, Koreans are number 1 in America.
Thats right despite China and India both having populations of 1 billion or more, tiny South Korea with a mere 48 million has sent more students to the US then any other country.
Education is just one piece of the puzzle. Poor job security, economic woes and marital problems also contribute to to the list of Koreans who take their own lives. Korean society as a whole is just too stressful.
Mr. Carr, since you understand, I see no need to even mention Japan for an entire month in any comment.
Fantastic.
I don’t see anything particularly bad about American influence over Korea,
but I’m a recent convert to the idea that…Watch Letters from Iwo Jima to get an idea. All I have to say. I’ll be counting 30 days from now.
Quick correction to your headline: ‘in the world’.
The OECD only consists of 30 countries. It excludes many of the world’s most populous countries, and certainly all of its most depressing ones.
Quick note on the growth rate (hypothetical example, not real numbers, but accurate in principle)
US rate of domestic violence in 1950: 1 case per 100,000 married couples
US rate of domestic violence in 1975: 150 cases per 100,000 married couples.
Is the astounding growth rate of 150,000% due to a rise in domestic violence, or a rise in reporting rates, improved data collection, etc?
I wouldn’t put inordinate faith in 1982 suicide stats from Korea, or indeed from the great majority of countries. I’ll bet only a few Western countries were keen on gathering good data in this area that long ago.
Despite our common nationality, I am not in any way connected to Jens-Olaf who has contributed to this thread. I do, however, welcome the arrival of a fellow German commenter on this blog. And his comment above about the shortcomings of psychiatric treatment in Germany as recently as the 1970s as early 80s sounds quite plausible. Since I left the country in 1974 at the age of 9, and did not take up permanent residence again before 2004, I have no real insight into the conditions in Germany at that time…
I think someone needs to come up with some reliable data. According to the WHO, Korea doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with this particular hobby. Here are the stats for men and women per 100,000 for year 2000 from http://www.who.int/mental_heal.....erates/en/:
Russia 70.6 11.9 (2000)
Japan 36.5 14.1 (1999)
Korea 18.8 8.3 (2000)
Lithuania 75.6 16.1 (2000)
USA 17.6 4.1 (1999)
Switzerland 26.5 10.0 (1999)
Azerbaijan 1.2 0.4 (2000)
Georgia 4.8 1.2 (2000)
We can’t all be “well educated” engineers and doctors. Someone has to build it and someone has to maintain it. Spread the respect.
“Listen to the man who works with his hands. He may be able to show you a better way to do it.” —Louis Kahn
I meant “as recently as the 1970s and the early 1980s” in my comment above.
if you ever attempt to find a trained, credentialed, korean mental health worker you’ll realize just how difficult it is to get professional help here. that, coupled with a lack of pharmaceuticals to treat depression and a propensity to drown sorrows with massive amounts of alcohol is a deadly combination.
to be clear, i’m referring to a korean mental health worker operating in korean.
I work at a private elementary school, the only one of its kind in the small provincial capital I live in. The great and the good of this burg send their offspring to us for English immersion education and most of the parents are high-achieving professionals.
One child I taught last year, second grade is a lovely kid, albeit with some heavy mental baggage for a 7 year old. If he failed one question, and one only on his weekly test, he would react by crying, hitting himself, calling himself stupid (the irony of this was it was in fluent English) and would not emerge from his strop for an hour or so. Despite my repeated attempts to assure him that making mistakes was fine and he was indeed a smart kid, he would take no solace in this. I referred the matter to my Korean co-teacher who told me the boy’s father, a prominent dentist, expected the lad to be perfect and instilled this into him daily. My fear is that before too long I will see him swinging from a rafter.And he is not my only student to exhibit such behavior. Kids of this age do not deserve the stress. Let the kids be kids.
Conformity leads to competition which in turn brings stress and fear of failure. Trouble with most people in this country is they all want the same fucking cream pie. They are even starting to look the same, thanks to the wonders of the knife. For women this ridiculous notion of the Korean man’s ‘ideal type’ has led to 67% of females by their late 20’s mutilating their faces. They are basically bred to serve men.
As to mental illness, the education system actually produces mental cases, and the military completes the job already started in school. And those obsessively interfering, pressuring parents who have tantrums or are grief-stricken at the slightest waywardness in their children also conspire to produce mentally unbalanced suicidal young men and women. In fact a lot of high school kids jump buildings so as not to face their disappointed parents when they get word of the test scores.
Korea is ripe for making and producing its own version of “Dead Poets Society”.
In Daegu, two freshmen, totally blotto, were tossed in the fountain by their seniors and drowned on two consequetive nights during the annual Spring Festival Drunken Orgy. In the latter case, a fellow freshmen jumped in the fountain to save his friend and he also drowned, being dragged under. All the deaths were considered “accidents” and the files were closed ASAP to avoid the nonsensical “shame” bullshit. The families must have suffered terribly but don’t dare seek mental health help in Korea.
I could cite many other examples but what is the point?
Kimchepig,
This simply can not be so. JK has pointed out on another post that his family and friends have never come across bullying or pressure to succeed academically in Korea. At first I thought he was full of shit, but when he brought forward such compelling proof, I was inclined to change my whole ex-pat opinion. I think we need to stop letting facts mire and color our impressions!
“We can’t all be “well educated” engineers and doctors. Someone has to build it and someone has to maintain it. Spread the respect.
“Listen to the man who works with his hands. He may be able to show you a better way to do it.” —Louis Kahn”
I couldn’t agree more. My grandfather was the janitor at my high school, but that was something to keep himself busy in his retirement years. As a young man, he had traveled around the world while he was in the merchant marine, had owned a general store while managing the family farm, founded a bank, and served as the mayor of his town. He never went to university, but he was an avid reader (George Orwell, Winston Churchill, and Mark Twain) and an excellent writer. He was still playing baseball at 90 years of age.
I don’t get it. I mention similar Korean social problems, including the pressure cooker education system, outdated and cruel institutions from the Park Chung Hee era, and lack of attention to mental health care issues, but get branded a racist on my site for doing so.
Then, as I predicted, the Korean press talks about all the same things, other people start posting about it, as in posts like this one, and you are getting “how dare you link Korea to Cho? why do you always have to bring in race? racist!”
I’m really curious – what’s the difference between me looking at these patterns in Korean culture (my initial strong of postings talked about the serious adjustment problems observed by the administrators of America’s largest public universities several years ago, talking about issues similar to the ones expressed here, and you guys doing it here, or the mainstream press?
Grr.
Sorry - “and you are getting” should be “and I am getting…”
Metro,
Actually, I don’t think you’re racist. I think some of your opinions are a bit to ‘ethnographic’, but given your field of study, that’s to be expected. The Korean media, on the other hand, are simply projecting their own problems onto an American issue to make a point.
I would check up on whether this is a hoax, but some school in Arkansas supposedly expelled a 16yo for being quiet and Asian.
http://forums.somethingawful.c.....id=2446354
It got on Digg so it’s bound to be common knowledge among geeks everywhere.
The discussion on the forum seems to be back and forth of “is this real?” and “i’ll believe it because it’s Arkansas”.
Sorry for being off-topic.
http://forums.somethingawful.c.....t326639053
Somewhere between the complaint about the kid being “quiet and Asian” and him being expelled, his cousin was called in.
So meh. I suppose it’s within bounds of something to be expected if you’re heard saying stupid crap like that a week after a massacre.
The problem is that the great majority of Koreans do not recognise depression as serious illness. That’s why there’re not many psychologists or psychiatrists in Korea. I think it’ll take quite some time before they’ll eventually do.
Enraptor wrote:
“I would check up on whether this is a hoax, but some school in Arkansas supposedly expelled a 16yo for being quiet and Asian.”
I checked out the link and noticed that the story first appeared in Nov. 2005. The OP claimed that the story would be on that evening’s news. I could not find any independent verification by googling. As a school teacher, I am highly suspicious of the student being immediately expelled. There are policies and procedures that must be followed. I cannot see a student getting expelled for wearing a t-shirt, no matter how offensive, suspended, yes, expelled, no. One mustn’t believe everything one reads in anonymous forums.
My bad. The alleged incident did happen a few days ago. I am still doubtful and wouldn’t bother passing along the story since there is no independent verification.
Metro,
Your opinions, unlike those of the vernacular press, don’t strike me coming from a fanciful mind.
No, there’s no independent confirmation of that Arkansas thing. That’s why I thought it might be a hoax, but enough people found it interesting to get it on Digg. And not everyone follows policies and procedures even if they know them.
Some local news reports that a student was put in a psychiatric center for a facebook picture of him with a shotgun.
http://www.cbs6albany.com/news....._says.html
The article says he put it up a few days after VT killing. Someone who knew him says it was put up before the shooting. Also says he’s been detained for at least 5 days.
http://reddit.com/info/1kogw/comments
That facebook-picture-gets-you-free-strap-jacket incident was at a college in NY, apparently.
Some students formed a facebook group about it.
http://cobleskill.facebook.com.....2332917106
Here’s something that’s related to this thread (finally. kinda.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18...../newsweek/
“Psychology: Why Some People Don’t Learn From Their Mistakes”
It’s states from the beginning that it’s not meant to apply to extreme cases like VT killer but the article says that undesired patterns of behavior such as antisocial behavior and addiction may have its roots in inability to learn well from mistakes.
It refers to a study in which subjects were rated on “impulsivity and antisocial behavior” and monitored EEG’s as they made mistakes in a difficult task.
I picked this up from a blog recently. It more or less echoes my thoughts on this tragic event. You can also find some insightful follow-up comments.
Cho Seung-Hui Could be a Product of the Korean Dilemna
“Cho Seung-Hui. He will forever be infamous. He was a loner. Depressed. His family immigrated from South Korea. He murdered at least 30 people and killed himself at Virginia Tech.”
“It may emerge that this boy was a time bomb created by the intensive up-bringing that is common to most Korean families. Although Seung-Hi Cho had been in the US for a long time, he was probably a product of the entrenched pressures of the Korean family; the pressure to academically succeed at the expense of childhood pleasures and the pressure to economically succeed at the expense of personal fulfillment.”
You can read the blog and some interesting responses here:
http://vivianjung.wordpress.co.....omment-155