re the fear of 'Losing Face'

[2wheels]

Fear of losing face leads to suicide in Northern Thailand | Bangkok Post: breakingnews

"The North has had the highest suicide rate in Thailand for 10 consecutive years, with Chiang Mai, home to almost two million people, reporting a suicide rate of 14 for every 100,000 people, the highest in the region."

(Bangkok Post)

 

[The Bigfella]

My youngest son, who had problems with depression whilst at school, was deeply affected by the suicide of someone he knew.

He decided to do something about it and set up a facebook support group. He's got over 2,200 people in that group now and there's little doubt that the availability of support at peer level has saved many lives.

Its an interesting model wrt the use of social media. Non-funded and effective.

.........

On a related front, when I was in the Vietnamese highlands, near Sapa, we had a discussion about the very high levels of suicide there due to arranged marriages. Quite an issue among the young women in particular. There were 3 in the group (one had invited us to stay with her family)... ages about 15, 19 and 21. The older two were in arranged marriages, 3 kids between them. One of them was happy, one wasn't. They youngest - the 15 year old was desperately unhappy. She'd just been told that she was to marry a 27 year old guy, but "she like other boy". Many such girls simply step off the bridge. Sad, but is it up to us to impose our cultural views?