A Moment Of Silence For Sulli Choi

Although I'm not really a huge fan of Korean entertainment (and I hardly listen to K-Pop) but this death is no laughing matter. It was two days ago when it happened and I was thinking about South Korea. Sure, South Korea is home to plenty of innovative ideas but there are some things I'd like to raise. That is some problems with South Korean society and why suicide tends to happen with a lot of its people.

From a blog called "Life Far Away From Home" writes this one:

Another K-Pop fan said, “Hyper-Confucianism and hyper-capitalism destroyed South Korean society. Even Japan’s hyper-capitalism resulted to extreme social pressure.”

Sulli was indeed, the outspoken Korean celebrity who does not deserve to be HIT SO DAMN HARD. Simply because she does not adhere to traditional-conservative Korean culture, doesn’t mean she deserves to be a victim of bullying. No wonder, more and more Koreans are committing suicide, and she is the latest one since Jonghyun.

I agree with Confucius on a lot of stuff but taking it to the extreme (such as blind respect) is uncalled for. I remembered the rather weird fantasy movie The Lost Empire where the Jade Emperor would call the five traditional masters as extremists and called for a middle road in the great Chinese culture. I think South Korea has left that road. Sulli getting bullied for being outspoken may have inevitably led to suicide. You know the pressures of celebrity life. I guess that's why some don't reveal who their wives and children are. Sulli doesn't adhere to traditional-conservative Korean culture -- something like I don't fully adhere to fully-traditional Chinese culture either.

Before we blame capitalism or call it evil and blame it on Sulli's suicide -- it's not. Suicide and hopelessness also happen in third world countries. Some people have stupid reasons to kill themselves. Others kill themselves because they're enduring such pain or are having psychological issues. Sulli apparently had psychological issues. The late Tatsuya Nomi from Japan (Dairanger's Daigo) also committed suicide due to psychological issues. The problem isn't capitalism but capitalism has gone wrong. Capitalism is defined as where trade and industry are controlled by private owners. Yes, capitalism is what brought South Korea out of the slumps after it separated from the Communist north. You may call it hyper-capitalism or capitalism gone wrong. South Korea has a good free enterprise but I think the problem is when it focuses too much on wealth and too little on job production and customer satisfaction. Japan may be suffering the same problem resulting in rushed projects rather than carefully innovated ones. Innovation is a good thing but rush it and don't put your heart into it -- you might be destroying modernization without knowing it! You'll just create waste products and in turn, destroy nature which provides the resources for modernization. How can you have more paper if you destroy all the trees or how can you have water-powered plants when all the waters are gone? However, South Korea now has a problem with limiting the competition with buying into protectionism to a certain extent (Did North Korean spies introduce it?!) which in turn has caused them to forget it was the free market that brought them to where they are. As said, when big businesses become greedy -- they'd want to pressure the government via their allies to protect them from any competition. Hyper-capitalism leads to protectionism (because big businesses will want it) huh?

RIP Sulli you will be missed!