岁 的歌手兼演员朴龙河(Park Yong-ha)曾在横扫亚洲娱乐圈的“韩流”中乘风破浪。 2002年在各亚洲电视台热播的连续剧《冬日恋歌》(Winter Sonata)令他声名鹊起。他原定于今年夏天与一线明星尹恩惠(Yoon Eun-hye)一同出演倍受期待的连续剧《恋歌》(Love Song)，这一角色将令他的事业达到新的高峰。日本的巡回演唱会原本也将于七月底开演。
然而6月30日，他的母亲发现这位似乎位于世界之巅的演员死在家中，显然是自杀而死。
他 的死让大批粉丝震惊，亦是一系列韩国名流自杀事件中最新的一起。 2008年时年39岁的“国民演员”崔真实(Choi Jin-Sil)据称上吊身亡。几个月前，36岁的喜剧演员安正焕（Ahn Jae-hwan）被发现死于自己的车中，明显也是自杀。 2005年，24岁的模特兼演员李恩珠(Lee Eun Joo)也据称自杀身亡。娱乐圈之外，前总统卢武铉(Roh Moo-hyun)于去年5月跳崖自杀。 2009年11月，韩国历史最悠久的企业集团──斗山集团(Doosan Group)的前董事长朴容（日午）(Park Yong-oh)自杀。
这些引入注目 的死亡事件背后都有不同的原因──韩国媒体的报道显示，朴龙河因父亲身患癌症而感到抑郁，而卢武铉则是陷入腐败指控。不过他们也是韩国上下一种更为广泛的 不安情绪的代表。韩国2009年的自杀率在经合组织（OECD）31个发达国家中是最高的，每10万人中就有约22人自杀（OECD的整体水平为每10万 人有18人自杀）。该组织指出，虽然其他多数发达国家的自杀率已经下降，韩国却在迅速上升，以韩国男性自杀率为例，这一数字在1990至2006年期间增 加了近两倍。
OECD在报告中将自杀率升高归因于“社会融合的弱化、家庭赡养老人这一传统的退化”，以及上述时期中多半处于快速增长状态 的经济。高丽大学医学院的精神病学教授Lee Min-soo同意以上观点，认为高自杀率是“韩国经济的快速发展所带来的社会变化、而文化却未能适应这一变化”的结果。
上 世纪60年代，乡村传统和儒家家庭观念深深植根于韩国社会，三代人常常生活在一个屋檐下。当时韩国的人均国内生产总值（GDP）与亚非最贫穷国家差不多。 在那之后的十年，政治和商业自由化以及高科技的工业化使韩国成为了世界上最富裕的国家之一。但与此同时，这一“经济奇迹”给韩国带来了大量财富，许多传统 的社会结构也纷纷崩塌，出现了家庭规模缩小、房价上涨、终生就业终结、职场竞争激烈、酗酒增加等一系列问题。据政府说，离婚率在1989至2009年期间 增加近两倍，普通韩国家庭的平均规模迅速缩小，从早年间的数代同堂缩至如今的不足三人。Lee Min-soo说，这就是我们为这种不可持续性经济高增长所付出的代价。
但韩国的总体医疗保健支出落后于其他OECD成员（根据OECD的统计，就医疗保健支出所占GDP的比重来说，只有土耳其和墨西哥不及韩国。）在心理健康治疗方面，韩国也大体上处于落后，其人均拥有的精神病医生数量在OECD成员中几乎垫底。
造成韩国高自杀率的这些因素中，有许多因素在韩国年轻一代影视明星中或许变得更加突出。首尔国立大学医院的Kang博士说，经常出现在公众视线里的名人要想隐藏自己的精神问题会更加困难，他们的具体问题在公众面前暴露无遗。
Lee博士还指出，对韩国明星自杀事件的过度报导也可能是导致总体自杀率居高的因素。他说，这种关联很难去证明，但有关自杀的大量而详细的报导的确令人担忧。
At 32, singer and actor Park Yong-ha was riding high on the 'Korean Wave' that has swept across Asia's entertainment industry. He rose to fame in 2002 on the pan-Asian television hit 'Winter Sonata' and was set to take his career to new heights this summer with a starring role alongside fellow A-lister Yoon Eun-hye in the much-anticipated television drama 'Love Song.' A Japanese concert tour was due to kick off later this month.
But on June 30th, the actor who appeared to have the world at his feet was found dead in his apartment by his mother, apparently having killed himself.
His death shocked legions of fans, and marked the latest in a series of suicides by famous South Koreans. In 2008, Choi Jin-sil, also known as 'The Nation's Actress,' allegedly hanged herself at the age of 39. A few months earlier, comedian and actor Ahn Jae-hwan, 36, was found dead in his car, having apparently committed suicide. In 2005, 24-year-old model and actress Lee Eun-joo also allegedly killed herself. Outside the entertainment world, former President Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide by jumping off a cliff in May last year while Park Yong-oh, ex-chairman of Doosan Group, South Korea's oldest conglomerate, killed himself in November 2009.
These high-profile deaths can each be attributed to specific causes -- Korean media reports suggest Mr. Park was depressed over his father's battle with cancer, for instance, while Mr. Roh was fighting allegations of corruption. But they're also representative of a wider turmoil in South Korea. In 2009, South Korea had the highest suicide rate among the 31 mostly wealthy nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, at around 22 deaths per 100,000 people (compared with around 18 in 100,000 for the OECD as a whole.) The OECD notes that the rate in South Korea has increased rapidly even as it has slowed in most other developed nations, with suicides among South Korean males, for instance, almost tripling between 1990 and 2006.
The OECD report attributes the rise to 'weakening social integration and erosion of the traditional family support base for the elderly,' as well as a fast-changing economy over much of the period. Lee Min-soo, professor of psychiatry at Korea University College of Medicine, supports this view. The high rate of suicide is the result of 'social changes that the country's fast economic development brought and a culture that did not adapt to them.'
As recently as the 1960s, South Korean society was steeped in rural traditions and Confucian family values, with three generations often living under the same roof. Gross domestic product per capita was on a par with the poorest countries in Asia or Africa. In the decades since, South Korea has embarked on a process of political and commercial freedom and high-tech industrialization that has made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But at the same time as this 'economic miracle' has swept the country to greater riches, many traditional social structures have broken down, with smaller families, rising house prices, the end of lifelong employment, fierce competition for the best jobs and rising alcoholism. The government reports the divorce rate almost tripled between 1989 and 2009, and the size of an average Korean household dwindled rapidly from the multigenerational homes of earlier years to less than three people per household now. 'It is the price we pay for such unsustainable fast economic development,' says Dr. Lee.
Yet South Korea's overall health-care spending lags behind that of other OECD countries (only Turkey and Mexico spend less as a proportion of gross domestic product, according to the OECD.) South Korea generally falls behind in mental-health treatment, lying near the bottom of the OECD's rankings in the number of psychiatrists per capita.
Many of the factors in South Korea's high rate of suicides may be even more acute among the country's young generation of movie and television celebrities. Famous people who are constantly in the public eye will find it even tougher to hide mental-health issues, while their specific problems are exposed for all to see, says Seoul National University Hospital's Dr. Kang.
Dr. Lee also points to the heavily publicized suicides of South Korean celebrities as a possible factor in the high suicide rate overall. A link is hard to prove, says Dr. Lee -- but 'the extensive coverage and detailed reporting on how people kill themselves is worrying.'