The former president of South Korea Roh Moo Hyun fell off a mountain today and died. It is believed that he left a suicide letter. He was currently under investigation for receiving bribes of 5-6 million USD.
From NetEase:
2009 May 23 local time, Seoul, South Korea, people watching news of former president Roh Moo Hyun’s death after falling off a mountain.
2009 April 30, Korean former president Rho Moo Hyun leaving from his home 450km away from the capital Seoul, preparing to receive the prosecution’s inquiries.
There are already over 5600 comments on NetEase.
Comments from NetEase:
网易广东深圳网友:
Suicide for only 5 million USD, sigh, truly born in the wrong place [this means he should have been born in China because the government officials here do not commit suicide when they are corrupt].
网易重庆网友:
It is not easy for people to live, and death is not the final choice for ultimately solving a problem. Life is valuable. If you are not afraid of death, why be afraid of anything else? Face reality, and bear the consequences of your mistakes…
网易浙江杭州网友:
Women often send their own husbands to their graves.
网易广东深圳南山网友:
If we here had this kind of conscience, I bet all of our cliffs would be filled up.
网易辽宁沈阳网友:
I finally understand why Japan and Korea, as countries with few resources, can be that strong and prosperous, because they depend on belief/conviction, on a belief/conviction of themselves. Compared to some of the disgrace and shame within our country, I rather admire this kind of politics.
In China, the person who would be jumping off the cliff would definitely be the person who exposed [the corruption].
网易山东枣庄网友:
This is a very brave person! Also a very honest person!
网易上海长宁网友:
Koreans committing suicide has become commonplace, from the actress awhile go now to the former president. If those born in Korean commit suicide like this, and this goes on, will they need to depend on Chinese immigrating over there so Koreans will not become extinct? Although North Korea is a bit poor, life is still valuable.
网易韩国网友:
Friend, do you know how many people starve to death or are executed for political crimes in every day in the north?
网易广东广州白云网友:
To the Korean people I salute!
网易广东东莞网友:
A-bian: You should learn from this, go jump off a cliff, you scum of the people, do you have this courage?
网易广东广州花都网友:
I plan on buying a Korean car now.
网易陕西网友:
I do not know if he really embezzled or not.
However, I still want to say something to Roh Moo Hyun: Well done, even if you embezzled several millions, your name still deserves to be remembered by the Korean people.
网易辽宁大连网友:
Only SB would believe it was suicide.
网易山东泰安网友:
Korea’s democracy, Korea’s enlightenment, I am filled with deep respect!
网易山东济南网友:
Chen Shuibian [Taiwan's former president] on a hunger strike for so long without dying made me mistaken suicide as being very difficult.
网易山东威海网友:
Great Korea, sad president.
网易宁夏银川网友:
His family obtained money because of him, so he wants to use ending his life to make his family miserable.
He did not accept money, but he did things under the encouragement of his family. Another way of understanding it is that his closest family tarnished his lifetime of being clean and honorable. This is also a reminder for our country’s people.
网易江苏南京网友:
Japanese devils, Korean crazies.
网易江苏无锡网友:
It must have been done by someone working for the briber. He voluntarily killed himself, otherwise it would have been his entire family.
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sofa!!!
poor president! this is not the way to take responsibilites for ones actions…
Suppose this happens in China! He would be deemed to be an official with good consciences.
emmm search up Zheng Xiaoyu
Please, this won’t happen to any official in China.. so what if they take bribes and ask for free sex…
“If we here had this kind of conscience, I bet all of our cliffs would be filled up.”
Kai: More than a few of Chinese comments here make negative references to China.
Are you going to call them ‘mind boggling idiots’? Are you going to send responses to their comments admonishing them for making ‘racist generalisations’? Are you going to tell them that their witticisms are based on ’superiority complexes’?
Many of the commentators have a certain flair for the dramatic, beaming one moment while being dejected the next. It is a funny way of thinking that makes it seem like everyone is critical but powerless. At least Kai has a mind which tries to grasp things and has opinions rather than another netizen blowing with wind and slave to emotion. We should hope for more commentators like him here.
Kai is a good commentator. He just write too much and care too much about what some people say. He should ignore some people.
Many times criticize yourself is humble. Many times criticize other is arrogant.
*sigh*
I sense another pro-Kai/anti-Kai discussion materialising, and honestly, for those of us who don’t really care, they are getting to be bloody annoying.
It seems that suicide is common in Korea these days.I wonder why those people were so fragile?If you were not brave enough to take such consequences, why you did so?
OoOoOoOoooo Kai, Asis called you out man, how you goin to respond dude??1?! dance off!
Dance off?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmub4qOrwA
YouTube…blocked…in…China…argh! Too lazy to use proxy but I hope that was a trailer for You Got Served or something.
stormtrooper in KFC;
HANDS UP!
(gun-reloading sound)
DO YOU HAVE SALAT?!
yes… please dont ki…
I HATE SALAT!!!
(gun-shooting sound)
Not sure if he is corrupt but to take the reponsibility for the scandal is certainly very honorable of a man of his stature. How many people in this world is willing to exchange his life with the “wrong” (I am not saying he has done it and only he himself will know) he has done. Can our current government officals just have 1% of his conscious and honour ?
why defend him? just because he took responsibility for stealing millions of dollars by taking his own life? how about giving all the money back and serving a sentence? how about not doing it at all!? dont praise him just because he took the coward’s way out.
lots of people in taiwan were hoping this would get through to chen shuibian (ex pres currently undergoing embezzlement trial), but so far nothing..
LoL, yeah, the references to Chen Shui-bian are pretty hilarious, but the guy pretty much brought it upon himself with his antics.
I wasn’t aware of any major “suicide over guilt or shame” phenomenon in Korea, though such has always been mentioned for Japan historically. Also, I’m not sure if many of the Chinese netizen comments are defending him exactly. I think they are more or less quipping that corrupt government officials offing themselves would probably do China well, since government corruption is notably rampant and public here. Interestingly, for those of you who follow Korean news, government corruption is actually pretty big there too, but they’re usually a bit more sophisticated and less “obvious” than what many of the low-level/regional/provincial officials here in China engage in. I wonder if there’s a koreaSMACK-ish website somewhere.
I think the only thing that sums this up is ”LOL”
Mabye he should have thought about accepting the bribes in the first place.Bloody Twat! i bet he went to a prestigous university?. Well clearly they didnt teach him responsibility,a President should be the pinnacle of ethical and moral standards. This little situation explains alot about the korean government in particular!
He came from a rural farming family. He never went to college but self-taught and passed the bar exam in Korea. His campaign slogan was to rid of all corruption in S.Korea and succeeded in getting the trust of the S.Koreans. But his wife, son and daughter pressured him to take bribes to buy properties in the US. He succumbed to the pressure of his family members which are extensions of himself and finally took his life out of being guilty of hypocracy.
Lian Jiansheng, 66, a retired soldier, broke through a police cordon and reached out to shake the hand of the would-be jumper, Chen Fuchao, before pushing him off the bridge.
“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interests,” Mr Lai was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/5372890/Man-shoves-would-be-suicide-jumper-off-bridge-for-holding-up-traffic.html
Long live Mr. Lai!
That story is hilarious, if you guys want to see western views on Chinese stories (oppo-Chinasmack) these are the comments from Fark about that story:
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4404531
It is not him who took the money. His family members took the money. The government is accusing him of the wrong doing because he is still popular.
His family members indeed took the money but to think that Roh wasn’t aware of this is preposterous.
“Great Korea, sad president.”
What a fantastic comment that is.
Politicians, their family and their friends accepting “tainted” money and participating in what can be construed as corrupt activities happens everywhere and in my opinion, simply inevitable. (Power, fame and wealth is a morally deadly combo)
I find Former President Roh’s suicide part-tragic and part-devious.
Tragic because a death is involved. However, it’s even more tragic because past rulers and presidents of the Republic of Korea have gotten away with larger sums of money all the way up to crimes against humanity. Most of their families are currently living the good lives with barely a care of the black marks left upon them by their predecessors. Clearly, Roh didn’t have the political power and background that would’ve shielded him (as was the case with other rulers).
It’s part-devious because his death will effectively end any investigations in his wake. The real bad guys behind all this are laughing all the way to the bank because they got a sucker (Roh) to nicely cover up for them.
Someone could find “big political game” beneath surface. Roh tried to maintain good relations with North Korea. Maybe he was pushed from the rock, then NK, in a rage for losing good friend, made A bomb test?
maybe he owed money from the chinese loan shark triads with 888% interest rate and he can’t afford the interest so he committed suicide