Comments on: Hub of…Suicide?

By: popular gusts

popular gusts — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:35:16 +0000

Oh, and a September 2008 Korea Times article looks at the effects of suicides on subway train drivers.

By: popular gusts

popular gusts — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:28:15 +0000

There was a woman who died when she became trapped between the subway and sliding doors last October at Hwagok Station, or so this article tells us. Actually, according to a student I taught at the time, it was a suicide. The reason he would know is that he is a station engineer, repairing systems in 12 stations (Omokyo - Banghwa on Line 5), and part of that job includes reviewing CCTV footage when suicides occur - not an enviable job. He told me more than 20 suicides had occurred within those 12 stations (I'm not sure of the time frame), including this one at Gaehwasan Station last August, where a divorced mother jumped in front of a train with her 5 year old daughter and 11 year old son. Only the son survived.

By: Gomushin Girl

Gomushin Girl — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:47:29 +0000

Not all the subways lines are owned and operated by the same organizations, nor would it make sense to have all subway lines under renovation at the same time. It takes some pretty extensive renovation to add them. And there’s more than just at Seoul Station – about 89 stations currently have them, 151 are currently renovating to accommodate them (line 9 will open with all stations fitted with the doors), and supposedly this will all be finished before the end of the year, excepting Cheongnyangni Station, which is being renovated in 2010.
As for line one, I get on and off at Dongmyo St. all the time, and there are doors there ~ as there are on line 4’s Myeongdong St., for example.

By: gordsellar

gordsellar — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:14:45 +0000

Well, the fact of the matter is that government and media have decoupled the rash of suicides among celebrities (“We need more absolute and total control over the Internet!”) and the rash of suicides among the rest of the country (“Let’s blockade the current method, rather than treat the underlying causes”).

It’s difficult for a society to get over its taboos, and mental health care of any kind is very taboo, still. Psychiatrists prescribe medications and then sell them to you, because buying psychoactive meds in public here is about as likely as ordering sex toys to one’s own workplace when one knows they won’t be delivered in a paper wrapper.

(Not that the latter case is realistic. They’ve mastered discretion too, from what I hear.)

But it’s much more difficult to overcome mental health taboos when a society isn’t really trying. There hasn’t been any big campaign for suicide awareness or suicide prevention as far as I know. Counselors exist but many are not cheap. Psychiatry is not a valued medical field to get into here, and the facilities for those having, say, a nervous breakdown are, well, from second-hand testimony I can say that some of them are atrocious.

The sad thing is that all the energy that could have been harnessed every time a pop star committed suicide was directed (by the media and by congresscritters alike) towards increased internet controls — which do nothing to deal with the suicide epidemic, but just facilitate increasingly onerous controls on political speech here. All that energy seems to have dissipated. It’s tragic, because it’s a double sin: a transgression against those whose lives might have been saved (and their families’ lives who would not be scarred as they are), *and* a crime against political freedoms too. It’s quite horrifying, really.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:44:51 +0000

Is there anything that I can do to help you or your family?

I lost my wife and 5 year old daughter at the 26 year mark in the Navy.
My dad spent 26 years in the Army after graduating USMA in 57.
His father went the distance after graduating USMA in 32.

Just asking.

By: daeguowl

daeguowl — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:45:25 +0000

The fact that they only have the doors on line 1 at Seoul Station and not on Line 4 kind of defies the point…

By: Joy

Joy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:38:45 +0000

The walls in the subways are functional on so many levels. Certainly could be useful in other subway cities such as New York.

I find it fun when you are at a station and they are in stages of building the walls. Each time you go through you get to see a different stage they are on.

By: Roboseyo

Roboseyo — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:51:55 +0000

Aren’t they also supposed to stop the carbon-monoxide-filled, possibly asbestos-laced air from the tunnels from blackening my sweet, soft, pink lungs?

By: Gomushin Girl

Gomushin Girl — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:58:23 +0000

The walls have a practical purpose beyond the prevention of suicide; its probably significantly increased the general safety of the stations that have them. You can’t drop something on the tracks or fall yourself. And let’s not read too much into the idea of a wall ~ I certainly think it’s a more practical and useful solution than playing Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Send in the Clowns”

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 11:54:45 +0000

You don’t mean that do you Mark?

Well, James, it is one of the reasons I am institutionalized at the moment….