South Korea takes steps to reduce suicides on Seoul bridge

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:05:00 -0500

South Korea has some of the highest suicide rates in the country — and yet people still won't talk about how to get help. But the Seoul government is trying to combat the problem, by changing the atmosphere and environment on one bridge that has proven to be a regular spot of suicide attempts.

Stefan Daniel Bell

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:35:47 -0500

Please tell them they need phones that light up when people approach the edge that connect to a human being willing to help them.

Thank you for this article.
~ Stefan

Raymond

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:07:15 -0500

When you say Korean government it is only Seoul metropolitan government, not the government of the Republic of Korea where extreme right wing politcal party is in power right now. They don't care much about people's suide just like Nazi Germany did not care much about human right of Jews.

Joziboi

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:05:33 -0600

"This 'culture' is baneful and iipisnd lacking in beauty, proportion and order."The same as all other cultures if you actually live in them day to day, as opposed to observing them like a tourist through a shimmer of exoticism. Life is just pretty hard and boring unless you decide to see the beauty in it. It is a decision.Lose the scare quotes. They look like adolescent rebellion. This "culture" is as much a culture as any of the other cultures that are the objects of adoration of those who enjoy despising it. Oh, and another thing - this American culture is certainly Western - fully European, fully Greco-Roman, etc -, not "pseudo-", so when you use "pseudo" it looks like you are flinging that as a term of abuse at the culture, a pseudo-culture. So it is sloppy and inexact to formulate it the way you have, and that also looks juvenile and semi-literate.It has been fashionable to sneer at American culture for at least a century now - the Germans brought the art to perfection in the Nazi era - and at Western culture for at least as long, in case you fancy yourself daring or cutting-edge or truly rebellious. In fact it's a very standard and well-accepted pose, so there's your rebelliousness for you. You of course may be too young to have noticed any of this, but plenty of people have gotten there before you and the old thing is pretty well ragged with use.There is an absolute reform and it's called renunciation, or asceticism. It's the life of the spirit. You cannot reform cultures to achieve the state of perfection you seek, because culture and living around other humans, with their egos and wants and needs and fears, is itself the problem. All cultures have their good and sick sides. They just have different ones.I know it is so tempting to look longingly at some ther culture as if those people, those people, now they really know how to live. It's all the better if it is some little-known culture, something remote that other people are not really familiar with. It's the kind of tourism snobbery that most people never identify let alone defend themselves against.

PRI: Public Radio International

South Korea takes steps to reduce suicides on Seoul bridge

Stefan Daniel Bell

Raymond

Joziboi