Sadness...

This morning, the former president of South Korea committed suicide by jumping off of a cliff in the middle of a hiking trail.  He was under a lot of pressure due to his bribery scandal for accepting more than $6M during his presidency.

I don't remember hearing a lot about suicides in Canada when I was living there, but I hear a lot about suicides here in Korea.  Not only are there frequent high-profile suicides, such as celebrities, conglomerate executives, politicians, there are way too many suicides among regular people, such as office workers, housewives and especially students.

#1 cause of death among Koreans in their 20's is suicide (#5 cause among all Koreans).  According to Wikipedia, Korea is #11 in the world for suicide rate @ 22 out of 100,000 people per year (#2 in the world for female suicides).

There are even websites and online "cafes" where people meet up to commit suicide together.  In the past few weeks, there was also a flurry of group suicides where they used charcoal burners in sealed rooms or cars which was a method used by a celebrity recently.  

There are a lot of suicides in the US, I know...I've heard of mass suicides often related to cult activities or some dumb kids committing suicides on live webcams.  But I hear of suicides way too often here to wonder why it is as such.  It may be due to the high level of overall stress.. or high levels of crime such as scam, fraud, corruption, etc... or perhaps it's the culture.  From the outside, one may see rapid technological advancements, great production capacity, tremendous national pride, etc.... but inside, Korea still seems to be a country suffering from a poor quality of life which may be a reason I never feel at ease.