Gravesite of former President Roh Moo-hyun, via Yonhap.
One year ago Sunday, former president Roh Moo-hyun killed himself near his home in Bongha Village (봉하마을), Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do. The Hankyoreh and JoongAng Daily both have articles in English about Roh supporters who travelled to Owl Rock to mark the occasion.
Roh’s grave site, which was opened to the press on Wednesday, measures 3,206 square meters (34,509 square feet) and is shaped in an isosceles triangle. The boundaries of his tomb, funded with donations from his supporters, were completed this month after six months of construction. More than 38,000 granite stones line the tomb, each engraved with a message that mourns his death. One from former President Kim Dae-jung, written by his widow, Lee Hee-ho, reads: “I feel like half of my body collapsed.”
The graveside memorial service for Roh begins at 2 p.m. today and will be presided over by popular comedian Kim Jae-dong. Performances, a video clip and a memorial address and speech by a representative of Roh’s family are all scheduled. A pre-service memorial mass will be held at 11 a.m. at Jeongtowon, a Buddhist temple where Roh’s ashes had been kept.
From Yonhap.
And while playing around on the internet a couple days ago, not actually looking for pictures of cute babies, I was surprised to see this series, easily my favorite of the late president, turn up on "Babies Making Faces" in April.
I was in Seoul for a couple meetings that weekend last May, and my girlfriend and I ran into a massive number of riot police while walking along Cheongyecheon. I assumed it was more trouble over American beef, which produced violence in that area a couple weeks earlier, and when I learned the next morning that he committed suicide amidst a bribery scandal, and that the police were preparing for some trouble downtown, I have to admit I wasn't terribly surprised. I'm not passionate about Korean politics, but I can appreciate where he came from and what he represented to a lot of people.
11 comments:
A few other posts of interest:
* Gusts of Popular Feeling: "On Roh Moo-hyun"
* Roboseyo / Hub of Sparkle: "Pres. Roh's Memorial by City Hall."
* My site: "Roh Moo-hyun memorial in Suncheon."
Predictably, his face is being co-opted by election campaigns.
Classic photo: just like stealin' ramyun from a baby!
I like that baby series.
That triangular memorial site looks interesting.
Am I the only one who thinks it's not a good idea to celebrate a man who committed suicide because of a bribery scandal?
I mean, this just sends a bad message to the rest of Korea "If you ever want to commit fraud in any way, simply kill yourself and everyone will love you after your dead!"
I guess I am just not that big on encouraging support for this type of behaviour. Suicide is the easy way out, the hard way is actually getting through the tough times and facing your problems. I have more respect for people like that.
Word verification: frwoofl. A frozen woof flavoured waffle.
Ryan.G wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks it's not a good idea to celebrate a man who committed suicide because of a bribery scandal?
No, you're not. I felt much the same way you from the get go, and I fear that this does contribute to the normativeness of suicide that feeds the suicide epidemic in South Korea.
I can't find them off hand, but I thought I'd read some similar sentiments from other bloggers (maybe from Brian in the past, too).
I think it was Roboseyo who said that, Ryan and kushibo, but I don't have time now to dig up the post (search his site, it's probably there).
I did see this comment on the Hub of Sparkle post I linked in my first comment; an excerpt:
***
I’ve been following the local blogs and mainstream news sites with some interest since Saturday, looking for JUST ONE voice to say the obvious, but I’ve gotten tired of looking, so I’ll just say it myself and hope that readers will see my point.
Roh’s death was a premeditated act of anger and self-pity, calculated to produce maximum spectacle, publicity and drama. One cannot help but presume that, in the end, Roh was thinking not of his family or friends. No, I reckon this is what he was thinking: “I’ll show you all! I shall keep my place in the sun!”
. . .
Roh’s final act was narcissistic and selfish in the extreme. What a great example to set for this country’s children. Too many young people in this country kill themselves. How dare he, a man who won election to the presidency largely on the strength of support from younger and first-time voters. How dare he.
Can't seem to post a comment on Hub of Sparkle, but for anyone interested, the story that commenter mentioned in her post there is of Non Gae:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_Gae
If you go to the fortress in Jinju along Namgang you'll see the stone and a monument to her.
Brian wrote:
Roh’s final act was narcissistic and selfish in the extreme. What a great example to set for this country’s children. Too many young people in this country kill themselves. How dare he, a man who won election to the presidency largely on the strength of support from younger and first-time voters. How dare he.
I agree with everything you wrote except the very first sentence, well, at least the first half. I don't know if I would call it narcissistic when his reasons may have been more about shielding his family from his own bad actions. In fact, his reasoning might fit in well with what Émile Durkheim called "altruistic suicide."
There's more to suicide in Korea than simply being selfish. And in a post I did a year or two ago about a famous celebrity suicide, I posted an article that said there were some copycats, but a commenter pointed out that given how many suicides take place in South Korea, it's a statistical certainty that the circumstances of some would resemble a more prominent one.
I don't know how many Koreans killed themselves because of Roh Moo-hyun, and anybody looking at that would have to see if there was any sort of increase after he killed himself . . . I mean, an irregular sort of increase.
Just to be fair and to get on the same page, the part you bolded, kushibo, was also written by that Hub of Sparkle commenter. I put the quoted comment beneath the ***, and broke up the excerpt with ... As far as I know, there's no way to do blockquotes in blogger comments, which is a pain and which can lead to confusion.
Do I have amnesia? The investigation in President Roh's case was not finished it was cancelled if I remembering right.
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