Death of K-pop star shines light on S. Korea’s suicide issue
SEOUL, South Korea — In recent years, South Korea has earned global recognition for its glossy and youthful music industry, known as K-pop.
At the same time, the country has grappled with a much more ignominious distinction: Its suicide rate is the highest in the industrialized world.
These contrasting facets of South Korea’s identity collided this week with the apparent death by suicide of one of the nation’s mostfamous K-pop stars, Kim Jong-hyun, who used the mononym Jonghyun.
The singer, songwriter, producer and member of the boy band SHINee was found unconscious Monday in a multi-family building in Seoul’s Gangnam district, a neighborhood made famous internationally by fellow K-pop star PSY. Authorities found burned coal briquettes, which produce carbon monoxide, in a frying pan in the room, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Jonghyun’s death, which shocked and saddened fans worldwide, is one prominent example of South Korea’s alarming suicide mortality rate, which two years ago surpassed all but nine countries worldwide.
South Korea’s rate also leads all nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 35 industrialized countries that includes the United States, Japan and Germany.
In 2015, South Korea reported 13,500 suicides, or about 37 per day. Suicides were the second-leading cause of death by injury, after vehicle accidents, according to the World Health Organization.
A musician friend of Jonghyun’s posted a note on Instagram that she described as his suicide note. The writer of the undated note speaks of suffering from depression, questions whether he was cut out for fame, and says, “No one alive is more tormented nor weaker than myself.” Jonghyun’s management company said the note was made public after discussion with his family.
Jonghyun’s death has highlighted a societal ill that has grown more common over the last generation — even as other developed nations have seen suicides decline. There is some evidence that rates are beginning to decline, though they remain high.
“It is a social phenomenon that stems from a combination of individual, societal and generational issues,” said Kim Hyun-jeong, a psychiatrist at the National Medical Center who also works with the Korean Association for Suicide Prevention.
Some suicide causes transcend borders, but many here are unique to South Korea, a nation that in two generations was transformed from a poor, agrarian society to the world’s 13th-largest economy.
That rapid development after the Korean War helped fuel income inequality and a society that many think values competition and achievement over individuals and quality of life. Another theory, Kim said, is that many South Koreans think they would rather die than suffer humiliation.
The suicide rates are particularly high for young people and the elderly, two of the nation’s most vulnerable cohorts.
The country’s economic transformation, for example, hurt many elderly residents, some of whom struggle after they leave the workforce — and some of whom were left behind entirely. Roughly half of the elderly live in poverty or have limited incomes because a government pension plan began only three decades ago, according to the OECD.
Young people here face intense familial and societal pressures to perform well in school, spending hours in special academies to learn English, for example. Highpaying, salaried jobs in South Korea’s highly competitive workplace also have become more scarce since an economic crisis in the late 1990s.
“Our society pressures us too much,” said a 23-yearold Yonsei University student who asked to be identified only by her family name, Shin. “When I think about studying in high school, I don’t wish that kind of pressure on anyone.”
In 2015, suicide was the No. 1 cause of death for people ages 10 to 39, according to the Korean Statistical Information Service.
Jonghyun, who was 27, had long left school. As a band member and solo artist, he achieved the highest levels of fame afforded Kpop stars, with crossover appeal in places like Japan and the United States.
South Korea is used to high-profile suicides such as Jonghyun’s, including those involving numerous celebrities and even a former president.
Such prominent deaths have a way of glamorizing suicide in South Korea, which also can make it more difficult for prevention experts to lower the rates, said Kim Hyun-jeong, the psychiatrist.
“In Korea, we care a lot about expectations, and maybe people are sick of living up to them,” said the Yonsei student, Shin. “Maybe even celebrities get sick of being who they’re asked to be.”