Just after dawn on Saturday, the son of a South Korean farmer took a stroll around the hills overlooking his native village. Momentarily evading the attention of his bodyguard, he jumped from the cliff to his death.
Within hours of the suicide of Roh Moo-hyun, president of South Korea until last year, tens of thousands of distraught Koreans had built makeshift memorials. Instead of incense, some placed before his picture lit cigarettes, a reference to the fact that Roh, a heavy smoker, had requested one shortly before his death. South Korea has been swept by a sense of grief and self-doubt that cannot be muffled even by the nuclear fireworks raining down from its bad-boy neighbour to the north.
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