People who seek celebrity's misery

By Chang Soon-hee

Society seems to be brimming with people who are delighted to hear unfortunate stories about famous names. The newspapers and television stations jumped at the chance to tell us about the “Nutgate” incident involving Heather Cho of Korean Air at JFK International Airport in New York.

The media continuously broadcasted close ups of Heather Cho for more than a week. She is handsome, slender with shoulder-length beautiful hair, and appeared splendid in the eyes of the masses. Most media attempted to gratify the desires of the common people who find pleasure in the misfortune of public figures.

I wrote before in my column that Heather was only trying to improve the quality of service and she deserves leniency and a return to her twin babies. I was stunned to find so many emails accusing me of siding with her with some even employing abusive language. Still others said she deserves a ten year jail term! Fortunately for her and disappointedly for those enjoy celebrities’ misfortune, the court released her early.

I must confess that I too enjoyed watching the news of the Sung Woan-jong case with so many well-known politicians suspected of receiving bribes. Who wouldn’t be interested in knowing that the Prime Minster was listed on the list of suspects? “Misfortune in others tastes like honey,” the saying goes and the Internet is overflowing with profane words seeking celebrity’s misfortune.

People don’t care if public figures such as politicians, TV personalities, or highly placed members of the elite have no relationship with them, they still cheer and applaud when they hear of their adversity. Men enjoy watching the fall of politicians and women seem to find joy in the divorce cases of popular actresses.

Why do so many people seek failure in others while we had been taught otherwise? The word “envy” is hidden in humans’ unique behavior. It’s an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another’s superior quality. In Buddhism “seonmang” in Korean is commonly translated as either envy or jealousy. It is defined as a state of mind in which one is highly agitated to obtain wealth or honor for oneself, but unable to meet the excellence of others. The evil feeling is one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.

When people are happy with their current life, they don’t have time to grumble about others’ success in social status or wealth. People get jealous of other’s wellbeing because their minds are being filled with displeasure of one kind or another. Contrary to general belief, farmers don’t feel much jealousy against city folks while they are busy working in the field.

But when they put TV on at the dinner table then the feeling of unhappiness creeps into their mind. When I visit relatives’ homes in a farming village I insist they do not turn the TV on. The farmers want to know when and how much rain will fall on their field, not to watch the city’s weather girls.

“People’s happiness” seems to be the goal of the Park Geun-hye government. It’s a sweet motto but is a fallacious catchphrase as long as society is filled with citizens who are looking for misery in celebrities. People do so because they believe it’s not fair to have so many bureaucrats and politicians who have either dodged or been exempted from the military service, or are suspected of taking bribes.

The writer is a grandmother. Her email address is ham1940@gmail.com.