Well-Dying Courses

Suicide has become such a problem in South Korea that many companies, including Samsung and Hyundai, are sending their employees on "well-dying" courses, which involve writing out your will and faking your own funeral. Somehow this is supposed to prevent suicide. From the Financial Times:

Before they are "buried", participants are asked to pose for their funeral portrait.
Participants enter a "death experience room" where they choose a coffin and put on a "death robe".
Course members get into their coffins and a flower is laid on each person's chest.
Funeral attendants place a lid on the coffin and dirt is thrown on the casket.
Participants are left in the closed casket for five minutes and some start to cry in the darkness.

Samsung has even built its own fake funeral center. Creepy.
(via Business Pundit)

Death

Posted on Tue Jul 22, 2008


Comments

That is disturbing.
Posted by N E O  on  Tue Jul 22, 2008  at  04:04 PM
Awesome!
Posted by Hugo  on  Tue Jul 22, 2008  at  09:05 PM
Actually other, similar activities do have positive affects though for those deeply depressed and considering suicide. Writing out the self-story up to and including death itself helps sort out key problem areas as if the writer were an observer from a safe vantage point. These methods are a way to speak aloud instead of holding in.
Posted by hulitoons  on  Wed Jul 23, 2008  at  04:59 AM
Bob Wiley: What are you doing with the gun, Dr. Marvin?

Dr. Leo Marvin: Death Therapy, Bob. It's a guaranteed cure.
Posted by Crazy Ivan  on  Wed Jul 23, 2008  at  08:09 AM
Certainly reminds me of a similar thing being done in that great '90s movie Empire Records.
Posted by Cap'n Ahd  on  Wed Jul 23, 2008  at  12:32 PM
At least this might put an end to the myth that Sweden has the highest suicide rate in the world.
Posted by Mr Henderson  on  Thu Jul 24, 2008  at  05:00 PM
I wonder if this whole idea is cribbed from the fake suicide in the movie "M*A*S*H."

I don't quite see how this would prevent suicide, but at least it lets you test-drive the concept to see how you like it before you're, so to speak, permanently committed.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Sat Jul 26, 2008  at  12:02 PM
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