One of the most serious and currently causing the most deaths in South Korea is suicide. There are approximately 40 cases per day of people who end their lives in the country. According to experts, this statistic is due to the existence of a highly competitive society that affects young, middle-aged and elderly people.

We have already shown here at Mega Curious, Samsung's campaign that helps reduce the number of these occurrences on a famous Seoul bridge. Now, to deal with this problem and the dramatic statistics presented by Korean society, another alternative emerges: the so-called “schools of death”. The idea is to provide the public with a moment of reflection on the possible decision to end their own life, involving the way to do this and an analysis of the feelings of people and family that are left.

The classes

Funeral simulations begin with students carrying their own funeral portrait to a coffin. There are several students per class and they are wearing traditionally worn burial robes. All steps are governed by a speaker, who in the case of picture classes is Jeong Yong-mun, a former employee of a funeral home. In the opening speech, he tries to make clear to all present that problems are part of life and need to be accepted.

Before the false wake begins, Youg-mun asks participants to write the will or a letter to their family members. In addition, they also need to read the last words for the whole group. Finally, the "time to die" comes and, with the candles being lit, a person dressed as the "Korean death angel" enters the room.

Students then enter the coffins and are locked by the "angel". They feel dead because at least 10 minutes are locked in the wooden boxes. At this time, what they should do is reflect on life and analyze it from another perspective.

At the end of this experience, according to the online site Mail, students leave the renewed "wooden jackets", thinking free of the conflicts that bother them. The speaker still speaks a few words, noting that participants have lived a death experience but are alive and need to keep fighting.

Jeong Yong-mun gives the lecture to the "school of death" students

Among the target groups are young people and teenagers pressured by good results in schools and universities, parents who, seeing their children leave home, begin to feel worthless and seniors who feel a burden on family accounts.

Factors Causing High Suicide Rates

South Korea took a few decades to move from being one of the poorest nations into the 12 largest economic powers in the world. As a consequence, people began to ignore collectivism, adhering to the ideology of individualism. This influenced family structures and many began to feel alone and abandoned.

This is what the National Bureau of Statistics suggests, noting that less than a third of the country's population still believes they should support elderly relatives. These, in turn, desperate for their conditions, have a tendency to commit suicides in South Korea, four times higher than in any other developed country. The only nation with higher rates than the Asian country in this regard is Guyana, Brazil's neighbor, here in South America.

According to data from the World Health Organization, while in Korea approximately 28.9 people kill each 100, 000 inhabitants, this rate is 44.2 in the South American country.

Check out some more images of the "death classes" in the gallery below:

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