By Kim Heung-sook
Freelance Columnist
When I first spotted a frontpage article stating ``2 of 3 Men Feel Urge to Flee from …,'' in The Korea Times on Wednesday, I didn't see the last word as that part of the paper was folded. It could be ``Work,'' ``Barracks'' or ``Debt,'' I thought. When I unfolded the paper and saw the hidden word, I was dumbfounded. It was ``Home.''
The reason was a ``stressful mix'' of long working hours, severe competition in the office and the need to bring more money to family, the article said. The desire to take off was the strongest among men in their 40s with more than 72 percent of them wanting to do so, followed by those in their 30s with 64 percent. The men wanted rest (30 percent), escape from the daily grind (19 percent) or the stress incurred by a recent layoff (16 percent), or a break from family members (12 percent),
As I was reading the story, which was embarrassing yet understandable, I was reminded of another news article I had come across a couple of months ago. It was about teenaged girls who left home. I rummaged through the heaps of clippings and found the article headlined ``Runaway Girls Doubled.'' It was printed in early May.
According to statistics released by the National Police Agency then, the number of runaway girls increased sharply from 5,984 in 2006 to 10,303 in 2008 in the nation, compared to runaway boys whose number rose from 3,406 to 5,024 during the same period. Young men and women were leaving their homes due to parents' divorce or violence, or family break-up resulting from the aggravating economic situation, the article said.
Many of the girls were living together with boys in similar shoes only because they had no place to go, plunging themselves often into the vicious circle of unwanted pregnancy and abortion and/or prostitution to make money. The article said there were 77 shelters for those youngsters, but they could accommodate only 800 persons. It was presumed that about one third of young unmarried mothers were impregnated while living outside homes.
I wondered if home had lost its luster in other countries, too. Probably not in Costa Rica as it topped the Happy Planet Index surveys of 143 countries around the globe. The HPI was published by the U.K.-based New Economics Foundation on July 4, determined by combining ``measures of life expectancy, happiness and ecological footprint to assess the sustainability of growth.''
Latin American countries dominated the top 10 list of the ``greenest and happiest'' nations, and the secret behind their success was said to be the lack of material aspiration and strong ties among friends and relatives. No wonder Korea ranked the 68th, having just come through in the opposite direction with their near blind quest for material and egoistic well-being in recent years.
Some Koreans may find comfort in the fact that most of the well-off countries or members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fared poorly on the surveys, too. The Netherlands placed the highest but at only 43rd. The U.K. was 74th and the United States, 114th. Skeptics may say ranks are just numbers, but I don't think so. These numbers are telling that lives in the so-called developed world are going wrong and need rectification.
As one of those unhappy nations, Korea needs to restore the home before anything. Not long ago, home was where you went with a fatigued body, a broken heart, an empty pocket or an unpaid debt. However, home turned into a ground of no peace upon the onrush of capitalistic and individualistic thinking that swept across Korea after the financial crisis in the late 1990s. As people shamelessly shouted ``Be Rich,'' the pursuit of material wealth brazenly took the place of the time-honored tradition of cherishing spiritual values and family ties.
If I were a teenager fed up with grown-up stupidity or cruelty, I would try hard to figure out where I could find help without first running away from home. If I were a man in his 40s and wanted to leave home, I would try to see if my wife was happy. I would come home early one evening and sit with her and listen to Elvis Presley's ``Home is where the heart is.'' I could be surprised at my wife's confession that she was dreaming of running away from home, too. And, without realizing, the two of us may be humming along, ``…And my heart is anywhere you are.''
kimsook@hotmail.com
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