The Maeil Gyeongje report on the late former President Roh’s cremation opens by saying that Roh “went to eternal rest in a fiery blaze,” a phrase repeated in other media stories. The article includes a photo of the coffin entering the crematorium furnace and notes that the process took 70 minutes, during which family members watched from behind a large window.
Had we been invited to watch my brother’s cremation, I think we would have declined, but I understand family viewings are becoming more common in the US.
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i’ve been to a cremation with family members who were pulling on the casket when it was going into the fire. there’s something unsettling yet comfortable in this type of grieving process. at the bare minimum, it makes the event tangible in a way i deeply respect.
I read “went to eternal rest in a fiery blaze” as “went to rest in an eternal fiery blaze.”
I’m sorry but did anybody think the teenager in the photo doing the peace sign while people were bowing was just a bit tacky. if it was my kid i would have slapped her big time
Koreans don’t find that offensive. You’ve never particpated in a Korean ancestor ceremony?
Elaborate attention is paid to setting up the ceremonial foods, incense and liquor, and the ceremony by the elders. All the while the TV is blasting in the background and the kids are snickering and roughousing.
Teenager? That little 5-year-old (or 6 at most) in the photo is none other than NoSoun 노서은 the grand daughter and the star of many candid shots taken of the late ex-president… Maybe she’s too young to know the sadness of death…
Here is another people’s favourite photo of him teasing another cute baby.
From “fake death” to buring his double took less than a week.
Perfect crime.
Reminds me of the movies like “Body Heat”.
There was another movie like that where a man does con, basically what Kathleen Turner did in Body Heat.
Kathleen Turner, weeehellavadame. Sexy, very sexy.
Creamation was the right choice.
When NK nuke and missiles pound SK, people will dig his grave back to tore his body limb-to-limb.
Creamation was the right choice.
Rho can be smart sometimes. His thick brain does work from time to time.
Not wise but smart.
I spoke too soon.
His ashes will be kept in a temple. The temple better be bombed by NK first.
Otherwise, people will get his ashes and pour it down the toilet.
Good Ol’ Dung heap.
Back in the 70s when there really was a dictatorship, albeit one that advanced the national interest, I observed that the demonstrations were deliberate violent provocations of college students against the police (gwuntu kyeongchal) . Ironically many of these “police” were conscripts, fellow students who had been in college the year before. I know because I had friends on both sides.
In recent times as well, the demonstrators continue to perpetrate violence against the police, attempting to goad them into martyring them. Ever notice that Korean ideologues have a martyr complex?
Sure, the rioters justify the violence by filming the police reaction and presenting it out of context as if it were the police, rather than the demonstrators, who run amok inciting violence. And they cloak their anti-social behavior in the mantle of lofty phrases they don’t really understand like “democracy” and “the voice of the people. “But these demonstrators are little more than thugs inciting violence against authority- and not for lofty ideals, as the time of dictatorship has passed – but merely to express frustration that their political bias was not reflected in the results of a democratic election.
Do these people have any real regard for democracy? Hardly. They are spoiled children stamping their feet because they want to be heard – regardless of the mandates of democracy. And in Korea, the thought is that the loudest voice wins the argument.
Of course, there are such shameful displays of hooliganism and social retardation in the West as well, with violence erupting over equally stupid things, such as football games. The difference is that once they have passed, everybody goes home, acts normal, and does not attempt to justify the act by perpetrating lame lies against the riot police and the government, like “they pulled our scarves off for no reason” or “they attacked us without provocation.” The political rumor mill is fairly notorious. People can point to whatever lies and distortions they want to justify their childish tantrums.
We’ve heard all the excuses. LMB is a fascist – yeah, right. But when KDJ and No Mu Hyeon were in power, were there not also violent demonstrations and outcries about police brutality? Yet NMH was for some reason not a fascist.
The “people” who decry the dishonesty of Korean politics need to understand that they are willing contributors to it, as their disengenuous means of expressing cloned political positions are equally dishonest, corrupt, irresponsible, and, sorry to say, socially retarded.
I, for one, hated the insipid “Down with the 2MB” chants and a few stupid candlers amongst the New Years Eve crowd in Jonggak 6 months ago. Moreover, I didn’t go to the funeral gathering – I still feel uncomfortable watching the loud wailing – for me, in order to wail, you need to put in force, and my crying comprises of spontaneous flowing of tears followed by an effort to hide that I am crying at all by wiping my nose..However, I think that the people you saw in the street for the funeral are not all the same lot who just likes a good public show of emotions. I read an article (I cannot find) which ventured to give three reasons for the funeral crowd:
1.Self-blame – a lot of the people who didn’t like NoMuhyun somehow themselves feel a little responsible, that they inadvertently drove him to death by letting the state of affairs to get this far.
2.Re-assessment – After his death, his life was highlighted, and they’ve come to realize that he was a truly good guy who was undervalued. They feel regretful that maybe there won’t be another like him. 있을때 잘했어야 하는데….
3.Resentment – This is where it crosses over with the mad-beef crowd in my opinion.
Anti-2MB feelings combine and find its voice through some trigger. In my opinion that’s what it was with the mad cow crisis(perhaps less justified then) and that’s how it is with the No death (more justified now. Not many people have any doubt that 2MB was personally responsible for the way the bribery case was handled, and they feel 2MB is showing that he is too scared for his own skin by using such heavy police tactics)
The majority also hopes that the Democrats stay silent. They have no right to jump on this band wagon. I think the Korean people are waiting for someone. They see no-one they can back in their campaign to make sure that 2MB government or ParkGeunhye don’t reign a second time.
A Korean friend about to hit 40 said yesterday, when asked about the very same point that Mizar makes, i.e. “It’s nothing like the old dictatorship days” – that the reason that he cannot help but hate 2MB with such gusto is that, for him, who witnessed a couple of young girls like me get pushed off the roof and die in front of his very eyes during some protests back then, his heart cannot separate “then” and “now” and 2MB just feels like a bad continuation of “then”.
Yeah, I get it. It’s all about how things feel to a solipsistic, naval gazing generation. I’ll bet you’re really anxious to see that generation take the helm, as under Noh, and will gleefully to witness the redux of the decline of Korea Inc.
And they believe that it was mishandled? How so? Perhaps, given the high incidence of suicide, the prosecutor should have tiptoed around to prevent a fragile mind from snapping?
Rather than man up to his crimes, the man took a leap. What a great guy.
yuna,
Korean culture breeds “respect of the old”. This includes the extreme veneration of those who are dead.
When someone dies, especially suicide, Korean people immediately identify themselves with the one who killed himself. They associate their problems (one half of the Korean population think about killing themselves every day) with the one who “brave enough to do it”.
It is sick. Koreans should realize the suicide is basically “Mommy, I cannot take it any more. So, I check out”. The act of stupidity and the extreme childishness.
However, the old habit coming from the Chinese society’s “final proof of innocence and purity” and from the Japanese Harakiri is imbedded into Korean psyche.
Suicide comes from Han, the Korean deep sadness.
As long as Koreans condone this type of madness (it comes not from American beef but from Korean history!), it will continue. And, as long as Korean people associate this madness as “sacred cow”, more Koreans will line to be the next “martyr”.
Fucking stupid people.
They’d better learn how the rest of the world, not the Chinese and the Japanese, view this act of the extreme selfiness.
Korean people need to abandon this worship of “self-determination at the expense of those who love him” and also see this act in the eyes of the Creator.
God does not like men who kill themselves.
빨대 (a drinking straw) is a term which describes the person syphoning info out to the press from the inside. This was happening at every single stage of the investigation. The press were jumping on this and printing the worst possible scenario of unsubstantiated claims and a lot of people were choosing to believe the exact opposite.
As a comparison, I read that during another former president NoTaewoo’s investigation, there was only one incident of reporting before the case was fully over.
It was also prevailing opinion that they were just targeting everyone who was around NoMuhyun- hardly impartial. Why not carry on at the same time with everyone on ParkYuncha’s list? There was a joke that only the ducks from the Bongha village were left before they were questioned.
And why would the 검찰총장 offer his resignation if he didn’t feel like he had mishandled the case on the day of No’s suicide (which was not accepted).
It looks like it’s not over yet. From the beginning the case rested on whether No had known about it or not, based on Park Yuncha’s words. Anyway, they should now have more time on their hands to go after the people in power too and definitely shouldn’t start pussyfooting all of a sudden.
@바둑 I agree with everything you said about suicide above. Does that mean that you believe he committed suicide?
Leaking information relating to an ongoing investigation is illegal
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/05/27/200905270055.asp
So some blame could be handed to Lee for allowing the trial by media that he inevitably got. Equally the media themselves could be blamed. Interesting to see what Cho-joon-dong will do about it.
Plus they really threw the kitchen sink at the guy, and all they found was that his wife might have taken some money. According to the rather vulnerable Park Yeon-cha.
As for the crowds, the people who spent hours in the queues that snaked in and out of City Hall station didn’t seem to be there for a political reason. Perhaps they were – shock horror – supporters of Roh whom the press failed to represent in their recent coverage.
Isn’t that self-contradictory? They were not there for political reasons, other than to express political support for Roh, ie. opposition to the GDP. Were they really “morners” or just looking for trouble? These people who wept so hard would not have wept that hard at the funerals of their in-laws.
Like the student demonstrators who were thrown from the roof of a police bus. What were they doing on the top of a police bus? Do the riot police need to post disclaimers that state: “commit violence against the police at your own risk”?
Somehow, all common sense has broken down, and a large part of a generation lives in la la land believing that they have a guaranteed constitutional right to pelt riot police with firebombs and rocks? Perhaps they believe that the police should be armed wity feather pillows and laughing gas?
It’s been fairly clear for some time who the aggressors are. Korean demonstrators are, and have been out of control and out of touch with reality for years. Frustration? Yeah, we all feel that. But the Korean flair for the dramatic at the expense of truth is inexcusable.
Bullshit. Rather than 있을때 잘했어야 하는데, this “truly good guy” chose to re-open the old demographic schism between Cheolado and Keongsando. His agenda was based on hate and resentment, rather than reconciliation and progress.
In that regard, the Korean left and the American right are mirror images, both so steeped in the politics of hatred that they have little tolerence for truth and progress.
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