ABSTRACT
I was in Hong Kong for the first time in February 2005. I listened to the news on CNN in my hotel room. Being in Hong Kong, I got the Asian news broadcasts I normally do not hear in Northern European and American time zones. They reported the unexpected, hence tragic, death of a young woman. Her name was Lee Eun-joo. She was one of the young superstars of contemporary Korean cinema. She had committed suicide. Her brother found her hanging in her walk-in closet. Later it was reported that there was a three-page suicide note. It was said that she had killed herself for shame. Shame is deadly. Clearly, we sometimes mean it when we say ‘I almost died of shame.’
