http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail...=20100630000044
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2922564
A popular South Korean actor and singer has been found dead at his home after an apparent suicide, police said.
Park Yong-ha, 33, was reportedly found by his mother after apparently hanging himself with an electrical cord.
Police said Mr Park had been under pressure trying to manage his entertainment company and career while his father was battling cancer.
If confirmed, Mr Park would be the latest in a string of South Korean celebrities to take their own lives.
It follows the deaths of film star Choi Jin-sil in 2008 and Lee Eun-joo in 2005.
Park’s death follows on the heels of actor Choi Jin-young’s suicide in March, nearly two years after his sister, actress, Choi Jin-sil, committed suicide in 2008.
His passing serves as a reminder of the recent string of celebrity suicides, from the deaths of actresses Lee Eun-ju in 2005 and Jeong Da-bin in 2007 to that of actor Ahn Jae-hwan in 2008 and “Boys Over Flowers” actress Jang Ja-yeon in 2009.
Why do so many Korean celebrities commit suicide? He was pretty popular in Japan as a singer but I guess it wasn't so easy, especially topped with his family problems.
over the course of five years he churned out 10 hit albums and singles and won four consecutive Japan Gold Disc Awards -- a first for a Korean pop artist...
In 2008, Park revealed that the years spent in Japan, particularly when he appeared on talk shows, were some of the most painful during his career as a Hallyu star.
“Yes, you could say that this is a painful memory for me,” Park said. “In a situation where I didn’t know the culture and the language well -- while they do translate -- when a talk show gets underway, it’s hard for everything to be fully translated.”
Park pinpointed moments when people on the show would laugh after he said something: “They would laugh together, among themselves. I really hated that moment, that moment of laughter. I had no idea what they were saying, but since they were laughing I had to join in.”
Park related how when he started to laugh, it left a sour taste in his mouth and made him sweat and think: “What did they just say?”
“While I worked in Japan, these sorts of things, kind of, made me sad,” he said.
I feel so sad.
