South Korea Videos - The Documentary Network

A Good Day to Die: Fake Funerals in South Korea

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 06:01:58 +0000

Whilst the rest of the world gorges itself on K-Pop, cool Korean movies and smart phones produced by Korean tech giants Samsung, Koreans themselves have never been more bummed out. With an average of 43 people per day taking their own lives, today, South Korea is the suicide capital of the developed world, despite it's rampant economy and booming prosperity. The deaths have caused much soul searching in the national psyche and with 16,000 people per year topping them-selves, the suicide trend show's no sign of abating. In response, a new craze has arisen - the 'Well Dying' or 'Near Death' movement aims to help people appreciate their lives and thus reduce the number of suicides. The most bizarre manifestation of this movement is the rise of 'Fake Funeral' services where people are lectured by a philosophical guru, told to write out their own eulogy's and ultimately climb into a coffin to mediate for 30 minutes so as to experience the afterlife. Vice Japan correspondent Yuka Uchida headed to Seoul to try and find out why so many Koreans are taking their own lives and to experience her own 'death' at a fake funeral ceremony.

Baby Box – Unwanted Babies

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:46:17 +0000

In this report, we follow a man who's dedicated his life to saving South Korea's unwanted babies. With hundreds of them being abandoned every year, why has the government ordered him to stop? Up to 18 babies a month end up in pastor Lee's Baby Box, a box attached to his house for women to leave their unwanted children in. "The babies that come here are the ones who'd otherwise die," he says. The shame of having a baby out of wedlock leaves many women feeling desperate. But some say the Baby Box encourages mothers to abandon babies without registration, slowing down the adoption process. Pastor Lee's been ordered to shut down his facility, but remains defiant: "There is nothing illegal about saving someone's life." The children are left in his purpose built baby box by desperate mothers, who feel they are no longer able to look after the youngsters themselves. A look at the sad stories of women wanting to escape the stigma of having children out of wedlock, and the heartwarming work of Pastor Lee in caring for them. But it’s a challenging job… new laws on registering births are making it more difficult to find adoptive parents, and some are critical of Pastor Lee for making it too easy to abandon unwanted children.

The K-pop Effect: Plastic Surgery

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:33:26 +0000

Viral sensastion 'Gangnam style' sparked imitations worldwide. Yet closer to home, the dream to be like such K-Pop idols is driving young South Koreans to a darker level of imitation: plastic surgery. "Once people graduate almost all of them get double-eyelid surgery", explains Gina, who recently left high-school. "In Korea they say, 'please make my nose into the style of this star'." In the district that is home to K-Pop's major entertainment companies there are over 300 plastic surgery clinics on a single street. But some fear this growing beauty obsession is threatening young people's sense of identity; "they treat their body as a product. They are losing the meaning of who they are".

Korea: Wired

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:09:54 +0000

It is a spectacular collision of real and virtual worlds and the consequences are potentially earth shattering. On the one side, there is South Korea - the most wired place on earth, with an internet that sizzles into 90 per cent of all homes and a national obsession with internet games. On the other, there is North Korea - one of the most paranoid and dangerously unpredictable places on earth, with a million-strong army and, as this film reveals, a super-secret team of state-authorised hackers looking to bring chaos to its neighbour and beyond. In South Korea, millions are addicted to the action unfolding on their screens - games bristling with powerful weaponry, requiring lightning-fast trigger skills to survive and played out on virtual battle grounds. Internet gaming is a massive phenomenon in a country with super-fast internet, with its own superstars, big bucks and even its own top-rating television shows. But it also has its downsides. The number of Koreans addicted to gaming is estimated to be in the millions. So-called PC Bangs in places like the capital, Seoul, are filled with gamers who do not know what time of the day or night it is - and who play for days on end. A number of murders and deaths have been linked to the gaming obsession, while special psychiatric units have been established to deal with the problem. But as a generation binges on internet games, a very real enemy is watching and looking for vulnerabilities in the national grid. Reporter Mark Willacy has tracked down key defectors with first-hand knowledge of North Korea's clandestine cyber operations. They have provided intimate details of a crack team of tech whizzes training their sights on South Korea's computer grid, planting viruses and dislocating and disabling important parts of the system - the financial sector, transport, internet service providers and portals. So, is it Game On?